


Fall Out of Time

by LMX



Category: The Unexpectables (Podcast)
Genre: Chronic Pain, F/M, I am not up to date on cannon, I started this with the intent to make myself cry, M/M, Major Character Injury, NaNoWriMo 2020, Panic Attacks, Separations, Stubborn assholes learn to ask for help, Vague nod to pairings, too old for this shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 37,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27806578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: Remy Corbeau was a patchwork of a kenku, more scars than feathers and more nightmares in his head than he cared to address, but he'd kept himself in self-imposed isolation too long and it was past time to rejoin the world. If only he could do it on a day other than today.
Relationships: Greckles Birdman/Remus "Remy" Corbeau, Task/Winter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. nothing's ever lost, it's all kept somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just want to write something to make you cry – for catharsis purposes, you understand – and that was me when I went back to watch the pre-podcast Unexpectables episodes and they displayed some fantastic art by @SilentShyGuy on Twitter of the retired Unexpectables, and my 5e brain noted the respective life expectancies of the team.
> 
> So this is going to start out maudlin and carry on self-indulgent.
> 
> Passenger, Patchwork for the titles.

The day dawned bright and clear, which suited Remy's mood not at all, but was at least an ease on aching fragile bones. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he'd hoped not to live to see this day, but it was here now, and he wasn't going to spend the morning looking for excuses to avoid it.

There was some noise from downstairs, likely his sister come to fetch him. It wouldn't do for her to have to come and get him out of bed, and that more than any other motivation got him up and into the day's clothes.

Technically it would have been easier to do his exercises and stretches first, dressing was always an easier task when his hands weren't stiff claws and he could get both arms over his head, but a little awkwardness in dressing was far preferable to the awkwardness of having his sister, or worse one of his nieces (all adult now, bafflingly – why did everyone keep growing up?) or their offspring storming in to stare at his body that was more scar tissue than feather these days.

As it was, he'd barely finished dressing and started on stretching before he was interrupted, not only by his sister Aria, but also by her daughter's little ones – Leo, Anto and Olive, all crowding immediately around his legs in a flurry of noise and questions and declarations, like it hadn't been less than two days since he'd seen them last.

Youth was so full of energy, it was hard not to be a little infected by it, and if his exercises turned into an impromptu tussle with the fledglings, only Aria had to know.

"Kids, we need to…" she tried briefly, but subsided in giggles as he fell dramatically (and somewhat painfully) to the ground with Anto's 'sword' impaled between his arm and side.

"No good," he coughed dramatically. "I am slain. Olive, avenge me!"

As the children scattered, Aria offered him an arm up, and was kind enough to keep hold as he found his balance again.

"Thank you for getting them all riled up," she scathed. "I'm to drop them with Mia before we head over. I thought I'd make sure you were up and didn't need anything. How are your hands? Should I make you breakfast? You need to brush all that dust off the back of your shirt before we leave."

Once their mother had hypothesised that Aria would slow down with age, but Remy was ever more sure that it would never happen.

"I'm fine, I can handle my own breakfast, and I keep my rooms well dusted, thank you."

"You've not seen them in years, don't turn up looking like you've been scrubbing around in the dirt."

The casual reminder of the long separation hit like something blunt to the ribs, but that was an old pain and he managed not to flinch.

"Go take the fledglings to your daughter's, I'll make myself presentable."

With his house once again quiet, Remy started his exercises from scratch, and then changed his shirt before pulling on a black gambeson that was a little loose around the shoulders now, but far too familiar to consider replacing.

He wanted to make sure they'd recognise him despite nearly two decades apart, despite the scars and the crack in his beak that made his words slur awkwardly sometimes. Wearing some outdated and poorly fitting fashion seemed like a small price to pay.

He didn't eat, his stomach churning, waiting for Aria with his hands pressed tight around a hot tea cup until he thought he might break it.

~

The temple was in the low district despite the significance of the event, and that felt right somehow. He'd expected it to be busy, but as he walked the streets with Aria at his side, it seemed that everyone was going the same way. Guards were setting up barricades and chivvying people behind them, but they weren't stopped as they passed by.

It would be an understatement to say that Remy's eyesight was not what it had once been, so when Aria said, "I think I see them," he didn't bother to try and follow her gaze, just followed her as she weaved through the gathering people.

They were approaching the shadow of the temple when she slowed, and then stopped. "They're talking to one of the guards, they haven't seen you yet. Are you ready?"

"No," he said quietly. He found himself wishing for a blade, if only to have something to close his talons around. He felt naked with his belt empty at his side, but he'd not wielded a blade in years despite keeping the one mounted on his wall cleaned and maintained.

"REMY!" The yell made him jump, caused an echoing susurrus of noise throughout the gathering crowd, and was still barely a warning for the high speed projectile that was Willow hitting him from the side. Only reflexes honed through literal decades of military service let him keep his feet and get an arm around her back.

He pulled back enough to see her and found reddened and bloodshot eyes on a face that had matured in the years since they had seen one another. "You're here," she smiled. "I knew you would be, I knew, but…"

"It's good to see you," he interrupted, pulling her back into an embrace.

"Have you seen the others?" Willow demanded urgently.

"I imagine this day is going to be hard enough for them, without having to speak to every…"

Remy startled for a second time as a massive hand dropped onto his shoulder, and he looked up at Doros, taking in his narrowed eyes.

"Remy," Willow said, even just his name filled with forceful intent. "You're not just some stranger here. You should go talk to them now, before this all gets started." There was another sentence there, on the tip of her tongue, and Remy watched her bite it back. "You should know," she continued, gentler, "They never stopped talking about you like you were one of their own."

"They collect people like a farm collects cats," he said, hoping to lighten the moment but seeing Willow's expression darken immediately.

"And if you think that doesn't mean anything, you're stupider than I thought," she snapped back, and then cleared her throat delicately and lent around him. "Hello by the way, I'm Willow, this is Doros."

Aria took the offered hand, "Aria, nice to meet you. I'm just here to make sure old Remus doesn't wander off." Remy snorted at the use of his full name. "It's nice to meet some of my brother's friends, he doesn't like to let on that he has any."

"That's enough, thank you," Remy interrupted.

Willow's expression went from friendly to sharp in a moment. "Remy, please go and talk to them. And… just be very gentle with Task. It's… they're not good at handling this kind of thing." Willow's breath hitched, and Doros reeled her in to press against his side.

"I will, of course I will." The heat curling around his guts constricted as he reach out a hand to lay on Willow's shoulder, and he clenched his beak even though it made the crack spike with pain. Dry eyes, he willed himself. Strong heart, dry eyes. Just for today.

Willow and Doros wandered away from them into the building, and Aria stepped around him. "You look like you got gut punched," she observed, not inaccurately. "I would ask if you're ready again, but you're running out of time."

He nodded, not trusting his voice, and followed her through the crowd as she headed to one side of the temple's great open doors.

He could hear Task's voice before he could make any of them out, just as strident as ever as he bemoaned something or other the guards were doing.

They were coloured splotches when Task's rant trailed to a sudden stop, and Greckles made a curious sound. A couple more paces and he could make them out, from Task's open mouthed stare to Panic's tired smile, to the moment Greckles turned to look and spotted him.

He was regretting that vision a moment later as Greckles turned fully, face like fury, and stormed… no, limped, but the intention was definitely storming – the few paces that separated them.

The talon that met his gambeson stopped him short. "You… you stubborn, prideful, ridiculous son of a bitch," he growled.

His voice was somewhat startling, different in that he sounded older, but also different in other ways. Like Greckles had decided one day that he'd aged out of the previous voice, and had picked a random older voice from his repertoire of voices to take as his own. It wasn't a bad voice, an echo of a connection to the Eastern Isles in the accent, but it was a surprise.

Not sure how to respond, Remy simply stood dumbly, taking in the three of them, ignoring the gaping hole in their formation.

Panic and Task had barely changed in the intervening years. Perhaps a little more scarred, perhaps a little more lined in different ways. Greckles though, while Remy had some years on him, he was showing the passing time. His feathers were a shade or two less bright than Remy remembered, ragged in places, his beak was showing a healed break. A bandana split his face to form an eyepatch, and one of his feet was strapped to a support, his toes curling in on themselves in the same arthritic way Remy's fingers did.

Task and Panic weren't even broaching middle age, but Kenku didn't have the same lifespan, even if they never saw combat. Remy and Greckles were getting old.

Even as he looked, he realised that Greckles was looking too, was seeing all his exposed scars where feathers wouldn't grow, his cracked beak and his hazed eyes.

There was a moment when he thought he might get punched, stabbed, or told in no uncertain terms that he should leave. He still wasn't sure which one to expect when Greckles closed the gap between them and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, but he leaned into the embrace none the less. A moment later Greckles was crying on his shoulder, and he didn't have a single coherent thought in his brain.

"I'm so sorry," he said eventually. "As soon as I heard… I didn't know…" His voice was breaking, and he'd promised himself that this wasn't going to happen, so he cleared his throat and looked past Greckles' shoulder. "I'm sorry that I didn't reach out sooner," he addressed the other two.

Panic turned a gaze in his direction, unreadable as he nodded and stayed silent.

Task, however, had something to say. "Fuck you, Remy. You made the choice to go back to the Front, and we didn't even find out you'd been shipped home in pieces until Winter came looking for you. So you clearly don't need us, and do you know what? We don't need you either. One less…" Task stopped himself dead, jaw closing with an audible snap. Without another word, he turned and disappeared into the legs of the gathering crowd. Panic passively watched him go as Greckles pulled back with a muttered profanity.

"I should go after him," he said, in the still-unexpected voice. "Hi Aria," he added, nodding to Remy's shadow and then following Task into the crowd, leaving Remy with a strangely silent Panic and his sister.

Remy took a breath, still absorbing the blow of Task's words. "How do you know Greckles?" he asked. "I've never introduced you, and you don't visit the low district so you wouldn't frequent the Sweet Dragon."

"Firstly, brother, you don't know my life, or my many mysteries. Secondly, do you really think your friends found out you were home and injured and just… continued their lives? You may not remember this, but you turned down a lot of visitors at your worst, and *some* visitors don't leave without being promised updates."

Remy at her, baffled. "You reported on me? To Greckles!?"

Aria was smiling at him. "Don't act so surprised, they were worried for you. And they're a charming bunch, when they're not threatening bodily harm."

Remy glanced back into the nebulous crowd, where Task and then Greckles had disappeared into the body of people. "I should… probably go."

"Don't." Panic's voice sounded sandpaper rough, but the force of it was undeniable. "Please."

"I… my intent is not to make this harder."

"Nothing can make this harder. It's good to see you." Every word seemed to be ripped out of Panic, intensity burning in his eyes.

Remy nodded, wanting to ask if he was okay, if he would be okay, but knowing the answer would hurt. "We'll go inside."

Panic nodded, back to passive weariness, barely registering the growing crowd of people around him. Leaving him to his self-imposed sentry duty, Remy turned back to Aria and followed her into the temple.

~

As they stepped inside they joined a short queue of people, and a voice at the front seemed to be greeting each group. "Hello, I'm Digsby, it's short for Digsbert, my friends call me Digs." Remy was already smiling at the familiar introduction, but Digsbert continued: "Only family and friends inside for the ceremony, I'm afraid. I'll have to ask you to wait outside."

If they were turning people away… "We should…" he started.

"Just don't," Aria interrupted as Digsbert started the whole spiel again on the next little cluster of people. The way cleared as the group of disappointed people filtered through to the exit. There was a beat pause as Remy and Aria stepped forward and had an opportunity to take in the tortle in Hoketh Clergy robes, peering down at them.

"Remy," he smiled. "You made it."

"I… of course," Remy said, reaching out for a left-handed shake that Digsbert returned enthusiastically.

"You're to head inside please, lots of people to get through and we'll be starting soon."

Perhaps he'd been too vividly imagining being sent to stand outside, with an excuse to distance himself from all this, because he stalled in place and Aria had to step in with a bright; "Hello Digsby, it's nice to meet you, I'm Aria."

Digsby blinked slowly at her, and then smiled. "Well you must surely be related to ol' Remy here. A pleasure. You should go on in too." Digby stepped aside and gestured for them to pass him, showing two heavily armed guards that had been concealed by his breadth, presumably acting as a layer of enforcement if anyone tried to get past him.

Both were staring towards him with an intensity he wasn't sure he deserved. "Remy?" the woman on the left asked, as the man on the right just bristled. The faces took far too long to place, even as he stepped closer, and in the end it was the body language that brought back the missing pieces.

"Arlo? Zotira?"

"You look decrepit," Arlo snarled, showing off his teeth.

"And you haven't grown up a bit," Remy shot back, more reflex than thought. Aria shot him a startled glance, but he didn't dare split his attention.

Digsbert chuckled to himself as he turned back to the next group of people.

"You should go through," Zotira interrupted the staring match, and near enough dragged her brother out of the way of the door to let them past. "We'll talk later, I hope?"

"It's been a long time, I'd like that," Remy nodded, stepping past them and into the crowded space. The flush of adrenaline from the encounter made him feel giddy as Aria stepped in closer and took his arm.

"What was that all about?" she asked, voice low as she looked back over their shoulders towards the two dragons keeping guard.

"I'll tell you another time. It's a story you'll enjoy, it involves me getting knocked on my ass more than once."

Remy took in the crowded space, obviously made for much smaller gatherings than the one that currently inhabited it. With so many people and cultures in Alivast, it wasn't surprising that the room wasn't full of the sombre black dress that he'd been half expecting. There were a lot of different flavours of armour and weaponry on show, Northlanders in furs and orcs in bright warpaint, even constructs in a mixture of bare metal and elegant decoration. The voices weren't lowered and muted in deference to the location or the occasion, but active and engaged.

A red skinned figure stepped up from his right, slight in stature and taller than him, dressed in elegant black and grey. "Remy?" she asked, coming to a stop in front of them both. "Wow, it's great to see you. The others will be thrilled you're here."

Remy was searching his brain for red tieflings, pasting on a polite smile. "Perhaps thrilled isn't…"

"You don't recognise me, do you," she smirked.

Remy was about to apologise for the offense when realisation struck out of the blue. "Scarlet?"

"There it is," she grinned wider.

Remy did some quick maths, and with a sinking feeling acknowledged that the young girl in his memories would be as old now as the Unexpectables had been when he'd first met them.

"It's… truly wonderful to see you again," he blustered through his shock.

"You don’t have to lie, you know. I remember how rude I was to you." She chuckled. "All those things I said about the stick up your butt."

Aria snorted, and then coughed in a vain attempt to cover it up.

He'd been around children a lot more now than he had as a young knight, so he didn't bristle as he might have once. "A childhood like yours excuses a great deal." He leaned in closer: "And some insults only hurt because they're true."

Scarlet laughed brightly, and Remy found himself relaxing into the conversation.

"You should know," Aria added, putting Remy immediately on alert again. "Remy was the rebel in our family. A menace as a child. I've got some stories that might surprise you."

Scarlet's eyes went wide. "Are you serious? This one?" she jabbed a black-nailed finger is his direction.

Remy cleared his throat pointedly. "Those are stories that Scarlet will never, ever hear."

"Griffin theft," Aria stage whispered, immune to Remy's glare. "The army hired him to hush up the political scandal."

"Aria, please," he begged.

Scarlet considered this new information, her face alight with a grin. "I have new respect for you, Remy."

"Thanks," he replied, dry as the desert.

"I've got to do the rounds," Scarlet said with an airy gesture. "Try to speak to everyone. My band has a set tonight that I couldn't get out of. We might make it to the wake before everything wraps up, we'll maybe talk more then." She pointed at Aria. "I need more stories."

Remy almost contradicted her, but she was already fading into the crowd with a wave.

"What a delightful girl," Aria said with a laugh.

"Have I told you recently how much I hate you?"

Aria elbowed him sharply. "Come on, that arrest was hardly the worst thing I could have said."

"I struggle to see what worse things you could come up with. Mother nearly disowned me after that."

"I could have described the torn clothes, the little street gang you ran with, the drugs…"

"That was one time."

"That you were caught," she amended. "And there was that time you got stabbed."

Remy opened his mouth to object, and closed it again. "I gave as good as I got," he grumbled.

Aria snorted. "I remember, but you were both fourteen and school is not the place to be pulling out a weapon outside of fencing class, whether or not you're spiritually bonded to it. De-escalation has never been a skill of yours. Weren't you suspended for that?"

"OK, I take your point. Thank you for apparently bringing up the least offensive of my childhood behaviours."

"Remy!" General Balton's booming voice broke through the noise of the crowd, and Remy's mind immediately went blank. "You're looking better than when I saw you last." He turned to face the aasimar, adrenaline suddenly pounding in his ears.

"Given I was actively on fire and falling from the sky when we last spoke, that is maybe somewhat of an understatement." He didn't mean it as a dig at the superior who he hadn't seen since his discharge back to Alivast, but the flinch said he'd taken the blow.

Balton opened his mouth as if to say something in reply, but the lights around the hall started to artificially fall to signal that things were about to start, and he simply nodded and moved away. Remy watched him go, feeling like he should call an apology after him, but knowing if he opened his mouth he might say something else he truly didn't mean.

Aria stayed quiet at his side, vibrating with something to say but keeping it to herself. Eventually she shook her head, "Come on," and she manoeuvred them both through the suddenly hushed crowd, and into sight of the little stage where Panic was setting up his guitar.

He was sat off to the side of the short stage rather than on it, and his guitar gleamed in the off-centre lights. He didn't look out into the crowd, didn't smile or mug for his audience, his attention was fully on his instrument as he started to play.

Remy had been witness to a lot of Panic's music; for performance, for idle pleasure, for resting during adventures and for combat, but as he started to play it was something truly out of the ordinary.

No harsh chords, no tapping rhythm, the melody was gentle, sorrowful and sweet. And as the tune started to take shape, suddenly on the stage was Borky. Not as Remy had last seen him, strong and powerful and wielding Raunfalt with expert skill, not even as he had surely most recently been seen by Panic himself as an old orc, but young, brash and in his prime.

The illusion smiled and declared that it was time to get Orky, time to get Borky. The yell should have shattered windows, with the music matching it, but instead it just left Remy's ears ringing and his throat thick. The illusory Borky went on to supplex an immense hag, to woo a drow woman, to weild a legendary sword, to grow and change until he was leading an army of orcs against the Orun clergy, receiving a medal for his bravery, strategizing and planning around a council table with respected elders. Suddenly there was a clan of Alavastian orcs around him, looking to him for wisdom and kindness, and he had both in spades for them, their adoration only growing as the clan of misfits became family, found partners, had children. And he aged, but he never seemed to get tired, never seemed to lose his brilliant smiling enthusiasm.

There was more, but Remy's tears blurred it beyond recognition, the song closing on the same refrain it had opened; It's time to get Orky, It's time to get Borky, and the whole room joined a primal scream.

~

There were a lot of people who stood up to pay respects to Borky, from his closest friends to honoured council members, to the members of the Alivastian Orc clan he had apparently founded and nurtured since Remy had seen him last. Remy soaked it all in, hearing in voices what he couldn't easily make out on faces. The crowd murmured quiet agreement with every moment of praise, warm and respectful, close packed in the tiny temple, and everyone feeling the weight of the life they were laying to rest.

As the speakers finished, Task delivering the last heartfelt and shaky thanks to the attendees, Remy glanced at those around him and hoped Borky had known just how many lives he had touched.

"Tarusk, this isn't a place for play." Zotira's exasperated voice was quiet, but Remy caught the words just before a tiny kobold child crashed into his legs. Somewhat used to little ones around his feet – although, perhaps none as little as this one – Remy caught his balance and knelt as the kobold child rebounded off him and sprawled across the floor between other feet.

Half expecting a bawling child with a scraped knee, he was not expecting a pair of piercing blue eyes to meet his with sharp intelligence as Zotira appeared beside them.

"Tarusk," she chided, reaching out for the child. "It's nearly done, we have to be patient."

"Tarusk?" Remy asked, noticing for the first time the pendant hanging around the child's neck on leather cord. The one that matched the polymorph pendant that Zotira wore. He glanced up at Zotira, sharing a smile. "He decided against the more typical human polymorph, then," he asked quietly.

"Tarusk is not a fan of the polymorph, this was a compromise that Task negotiated after much strife." She gathered up the dragon child in his even-smaller dragon form, lifting him into her arms to get him out from under foot of the crowd.

Remy smiled at the dragon child, in his tiny blue scaled kobold disguise. "Despite appearances, I imagine you've grown a great deal since we met last. Do you remember me?"

Tarusk glanced between Remy and Zotira for a moment, and then declared "Remy," and then, in perfect common: "Remy fights with Arlo", before breaking into a cackling laughter. Remy had strong memories of the young dragon's developing speech, and between that and not expecting to be remembered when he was present for such a small part of the child's development, Remy was startled speechless. It certainly seemed he hadn't made the best impressions on the young ones the Unexpectables had found under their care.

Zotira was laughing. "Yes, that certainly did happen more than once."

"And still he's very rude," Remy observed, and was pleased that it prompted more laughter from the young dragon.

"One day, perhaps he will come across a lesson which sticks," Zotira smiled between them both, "but for now he remains Arlo. We're training with the guild now – did you hear?"

"I did not," Remy said, ignoring Aria elbowing his side. "Will you tell me about it?"

~

It was nearly an hour later, with no sign of the Unexpectables after their speeches, but an appearance from near enough every other person Remy could think to associate with them, that Aria pulled him to one side. "I'm going to suggest something to you, and I want you to consider it seriously."

"Of course, what are you thinking?"

"Your friends have an inn and are more than capable of sticking you in a chair somewhere to talk until you can't anymore, and then getting you to a room for the night. Mia and Teo are on night shift, I have to go home after the procession, but you should go to the wake. See this day out, reconnect with your friends."

Remy breathed deeply. How could he say 'I don't want them to see how weak I am' to his sister without admitting the same. Maybe it was fruitless to hide such an admission from someone who had seen him at his very worst, but it wasn't like his pride was a new feature. In truth, his fragility was probably obvious enough in the fact of his escort, but he could play that off as emotional support for brief interactions throughout the day. If he stayed, he would have to show his friends exactly how far he'd fallen.

It was strange, it may not have been such an obstacle if they were all feeling their years, but Panic and Task were still in their prime, and from the incredible display of magic Panic had just shown, more powerful than ever.

"It's already been a long day, for me and for them. We'll have other chances to reconnect."

Aria gave him a long look, and then turned back to scanning the crowd, nodding her agreement. "If you insist. Will you say goodbye to them?" Her tone was sharp and disappointed, but she didn't fight with him.

"Of course. As soon as the procession is done."

There was already movement in the crowd around them, as people started to gather up their coats and make way for the pallbearers to move up to the casket. The Unexpectables looked oddly mismatched with Gruul, Brorc and a half-orc young woman who Remy didn't recognise stepping up alongside them. Before he got to the front, Task stepped up to Willow and a beat later and what Remy assumed to be an enlarge spell, he was suddenly of a height with the orcs, his ears looking oddly huge in the new scale.

The Alivast graveyard was a relatively short walk, even moving as slowly as such a procession could move, but what Remy wasn't expecting was to step out of the temple and be faced with a street lined with mourners, guards keeping them checked behind barriers to allow space for the procession to pass. Doros and Digsbert led the way, and what seemed like the whole of Alivast watched Borky travel to his final rest.

~

Panic was the easiest to find, once the burial was done and the majority of the crowd had started to dissipate. Remy felt like that might have been something of a blessing, the easiest to talk to after everything. He wasn't expecting the fierce, almost desperate response at his stilted attempt at a goodbye.

"What? No! You can't leave, we haven't… the wake…" Panic gestured in the rough direction of the Sweet Dragon, his elbow clattering against his guitar where it rested on his back.

Remy was already shaking his head. "I've taken Aria away from her family for too long already, we need to head home."

Panic looked briefly at Aria who had been cornered into a conversation by one of the council members, then back at Remy. "But *you* could stay, right? I mean… You could come back to the Sweet Dragon, have some drinks with us, there'll be space in Greckles room…" Panic's tone turned honey sweet.

Remy had never been able to tell when Panic switched from just being charming to actual magic levels of persuasion, and this certainly felt borderline as he reconsidered for a moment before shaking his head again. "Panic, I am far too old to even think of sleeping on Greckles' floor."

"Don't worry," he half whispered, leaning in close. "So is he."

Remy tried to parse out that logic for a moment before putting together Panic's ungainly movements with the smell on his breath. "Are you drunk?" he said.

"He's not been sober for a few days now," Task said, appearing on his right. He was back to his normal size with the casket now delivered, but he still looked rattled, face drawn and tired. "It took a lot of coffee to get him through this afternoon." He didn't make eye contact with Remy, attention fixed on Panic with a scowl that Remy struggled to interpret.

"Like I can't cast at sixth level, drunk," Panic snorted. "Task, persuade Remy to stay for the wake. House rules say I'm not allowed to cast spells on friends."

Task shot Remy a look. "Do what you like," he snarled. "Just don't leave without talking to Greckles."

Panic groaned like a teenager asked to clean his room. "Task, you are the fucking *worst*."

There was the hint of a growl in Task's tone as he replied, turning his back on Remy. "He made his decision, Panic. You don't always get your way. Stop fucking drinking for… an hour at least, else you're not going to be conscious for the creepy orc death party or whatever." Task shook his head and left without looking back.

Panic watched him go, and something told Remy that the slump in his shoulders wasn't from the telling off Task had delivered, or his failure to encourage Remy to stay for the wake.

"Ignore him," Panic sighed, waving a hand vaguely. "He's… You know what," Panic leaned back in. "If you stay for the wake, I will give up my bed for the night, and I will even… fucking sober up before I start drinking again."

Remy's eyes were still on where Task had disappeared back into the crowd. He had so many regrets, but it was going to take more than a couple of words to smooth things over with the volatile kobold. "That sounds very unlikely," he said absently, dragging his attention back to Panic. "Wakes are not usually best undertaken sober."

"Well, chances are I'm not going to be using my bed anyway tonight, so…"

"Remy," Aria had stepped up beside him unnoticed, and she raised an eyebrow as he looked her way. "You should stay," she said again, and his resolve faltered. "Look, Audrey's here and I haven't spoken to her in a while. I'm going to talk to her before I leave. I'll check in before I go, but I think this decision is being made for you. I'll come by the Sweet Dragon tomorrow… late, I imagine?"

"Don't worry about it," Panic said, waving a hand. "We'll get him home."

"Then it sounds like I don't get an opinion here," Remy grumbled as Aria headed away through the crowd.

"Nope," Panic threw an arm over his shoulder. "If we're throwing Borky a fucking death party, every fucking soul he knows who's still on this continent is going to be there."

Accepting his lot for the evening, Remy braced himself, and nodded. "He deserves nothing less. We should find you some water, something to help you sober up, if that's the deal."

There was a drinking well not far outside the graveyard, Remy remembered it from previous visits, and he carefully navigated them both through the crowd until they were stood in slightly clearer streets, watching people disperse from outside the graveyard gates.

Panic splashed water on his face, and then lent back against the stone statue that framed the well, observing.

"He hasn't told us yet, but I think Greckles is considering retirement." The announcement seemed to come out of nowhere, and Remy took a moment to consider the right response.

Periodically someone would stop and share a few words on their way past, but at some point in the walk over Panic had transitioned back from jolly teasing drunk to tired and sad, and it seemed to repel all but the strongest willed well-wishers.

"He's not that much younger than me, and adventuring is for the young."

Panic snorted. "He's the youngest of us." A half-smile flickered on his face. "Fucking birds."

"We don't have devils or dragons in our ancestry to keep us for centuries or more. We just get what years and what health we get."

Panic went quiet again. "Your sister…" he started.

Remy growled. "We have spoken before about your mentioning my sister."

"Come now, it must be a little different now I've met her?" Panic pressed, with a flicker of his usual good humour.

"Not in the slightest."

Panic nodded thanks to another murmured sympathy in passing. "How poor is your eyesight now, that you need a guide?"

Remy took a beat, suppressed a sigh. "And here I thought perhaps I was more subtle than that."

"It took me a little while to work out. Was that why you didn't want to stay? Didn't trust us to look out for you?"

"It's less that I didn't trust you, more that I wanted to keep up at least the illusion of being… myself."

"Trying to keep up some untouchable image? In front of *us*?" Panic choked a laugh.

"I need to be nearly close enough to touch before I can read a face. I can get around streets I know well, but I get lost easily and often. My health and constitution will never recover to what they were before that attack, the price I paid for my life. I am not fit to be around a lot of the time. It's fair to say, self-pity does not make for good company."

"Well, that is something that we are not unfamiliar with. And we just lost our ray of fucking sunshine, so we're looking at a grim time ahead."

Remy considered that, and how well balanced the team's various humours had been to keep them all friends and together through all that they'd faced.

"I have to ask… did Greckles every find his Yukiko?"

Panic peered over at him, and Remy didn't meet his eyes, pretending sudden interest in the people leaving the graveyard.

"Not that I know of. He did some travelling a while back, helped Robin take her father's body back to his birthplace. He wouldn't say much when he came home." Panic considered a moment more. "Maybe? But even if he did, she didn't come back with him."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"No, you're not," Panic shot back without hesitating.

"Drink some water," Remy snapped back after a beat.

Panic smirked, and then glanced past Remy's shoulder. "Your sister and Audrey, coming up behind you."

Remy turned, scanning the entrance to the graveyard and trying to identify the people leaving. Panic nudged his shoulder from behind and leaned forward to half-whisper: "Six half-orc-devil kids. Six. You did that."

Audrey stepped forwards, hesitating as Aria got caught into conversation with someone who might be Willow, then crossing the rest of the way to join them. "Hey Remy," she greeted. "Your sister said you'd be here." She moved in close for a hug, giving Remy only the fleeting impression of red cheeks. "How've you been?" Her hands were warm against his back, and he felt the healing almost immediately.

He took a half-step back, displacing her hands. "Audrey, please don't waste that on me."

"I'm not working today, I might as well use it somewhere." Her smile was as bright as ever, but he could see the tiredness in her eyes.

Remy cleared his throat. "How is the temple?"

"Quiet at the moment. Only a few long standing in-patients and the usual magical mishaps and bar fights."

"And Gruul?"

"He's… sad. This has hit the orc community hard. Borky was something of an icon. Gruul is still coming to terms with the idea of outliving so many of his friends and allies, I think Borky was an unexpected loss. He never seemed to age."

"I haven't… to my shame, it's been a long time since I saw him last. Panic's performance." Remy cleared his throat roughly, glancing over at the bard. "It was a delight to see him so clearly adored."

"It was perfect, Panic. I know a lot of effort went into that, he would have loved it."

Panic made a vague noise that Remy couldn't interpret.

Audrey was still smiling. "He had a good run, in the end. For an orc who lived like he did, reaching his late forties was… very respectable."

"I know Gruul was thinking about heading back to the town," Panic said. "Will that change?"

"We'll wait a little while, until things settle back down. But the clan here is very stable, Alor and Hestia were already leading the clan in all but name. I think we'll be moving soon, with the orcs who want to travel."

"You'll be missed," Remy said.

"We'll not be far. It's not like it used to be, when the fastest you could get from place to place was a horse or a boat. You can get a message across planes now, if you have the coin for the spellcaster."

"It's true."

Remy looked over to find his sister and Gruul walking towards them, talking with animation. Audrey glanced back. "We're heading out. Enjoy the wake, have a drink for me."

Aria gave Remy a sharp look as she joined them. "I'm going to walk back with Audrey and Gruul." Her eyes narrowed. "You're staying," she said, with very little suggestion of a question.

"It seems so," he replied, finding a smile.

"Panic, are you ready?" Greckles appeared, looking exhausted and dulled from the day. "Remy, you coming with?"

"If you don't mind finding me a bed for the night, it would be a pleasure," he replied, realising he meant it only after he'd said it.

"Take care, Greckles," Aria said, moving over to give him a tight hug, and then giving Panic the same treatment. "It was beautiful," she told the bard.

Panic nodded silently, flashing his showman's smile.

Greckles was gathering up his coat and hat, pressing Panic's guitar into his hands. Zotira and Task were talking not far away, Tarusk a bright blue dot clinging to Task's red-scaled shoulder. "Come on," Greckles declared, "Back to the Sweet Dragon before the party gets started without us."

~

The inn was still bustling hours later, although Panic had switched out with a Gnoll band on the stage, so the musical mood had switched a little. Remy had never been to a wake this full of smiling people before, it was a little strange.

There were a very large number of orcs, and several older adventurers and guards who Remy could identify, but also a good number of varied young adventurers, apparently members of the Unexpectables Guild, now grown up into a full adventuring guild around the Sweet Dragon and its owners.

Remy smiled as Greckles settled into the seat beside him with a sigh. He sat quietly for a long moment, the two of them just taking in the crowd as it moved around them. Eventually, as if he had made a decision, Greckles sighed again.

"There was one message I got from your sister, early on, before you left the hospital, that just read; 'Today he is alive and that will have to be enough.' She probably didn't mean for that to be as profound as it was to me, but…" Greckles' voice trailed to a stop, and he glanced up at Remy.  
"We didn't want to intrude," he started again, gaze returning to the bottle that he was spinning between his talons. "We were trying to respect your wishes, and your sister is… a force." Greckles glanced up, chuckled as they shared a smile. "But I feel like… sometimes I think it would have been better if we'd kept trying. Kept turning up."

Remy considered this, considered the moment when he realised that anything he might have wanted to say to Borky, he'd left it too late. Considered all the unspoken words he'd played out in his mind. "I'm not good at admitting my own faults, my own weaknesses. When the clerics said I was fit to return home I thought about reaching out. But I was not fit company, had not been fit company, and I knew that at least. My sister is a saint for putting up with my behaviour."

"You thought we'd put off by a foul mood?"

"More than that, I didn't want your image of me to be… changed. You were right earlier – stupid, proud and stubborn. And so I didn't get to see Borky's clan grow up around him. I didn't get to tell him how much I respected him, loved fighting alongside him. Alongside you all."

"What you survived… you shouldn't have survived it. And you thought we'd see you as weak?"

Remy shrugged. "Some things aren't based in logic."

"Yeah, no shit."

"All I can say is I'm sorry. I won't apologise for going back to the front, they needed me there. But I regret not being there for you… being absent from your lives for so long."

"You're forgiven," Greckles said easily, as if Remy hadn't had years of strife thinking of all the ways he could earn those words. "Your sister writes a good letter, especially when her brother's being a dick and she needs to vent."

"Well…" he huffed. "As it seems you have me at a disadvantage, what's the story here?" he tapped alongside his own eye, indicating the eyepatch Greckles wore.

"Ah! A good story. Panic!" he bellowed, making Remy jump.

A moment later Panic slumped into the nearest chair, banging an unmarked bottle down on the table between them. "You…" hic "… called?" His melancholy seemed to have been soothed by the music for a little while, and he'd progressed into gregarious drunk. 

"Tell Remy the aboleth story," Greckles grinned, clearly enthusiastic.

"The WHAT!?" Remy hissed.

"Once upon a time…" Panic started. "Greckles learned that however charming an aboleth is, tentacle porn isn't all it is cracked up to be, and he got an STD."

"Oh my God, you're the worst bard *ever*," Greckles growled, his eyes bright with laughter.

Panic took a swig of his drink and put it down on the table, clearing his throat dramatically. "There was an informant that went missing en route back to Alivast. Our mission was save, or confirm dead. The boat had gone down with all hands, and the wreckage scattered along the coast."

"Wreckage and horribly mutilated bodies. Like nothing we'd ever seen," Greckles added.

"The Unexpectables – as you know – do not have the best history with boats, but Zenrio reached out with some…"

"Yo," Zenrio dropped into a nearby empty seat, Tarusk moving to sprawl next to him, huge out of polymorph and immediately propped his chin on Zenrio's knee.

"Speak of him…" Panic muttered under his breath before continuing with his story. "…With some key intel, so we were committed."

Task appeared, following after the triton and the dragon child, with a cupcake held out towards Tarusk. "See, like I promised."

He looked washed out and tired, as Remy took the opportunity to observe, but like always in the presence of his son Task's sharp edges seemed to smooth over and he found his smile.

Tarusk snatched the cake from him with bright-eyed glee, and Task looked over at the others, perhaps a little startled to see everyone watching them, putting on a performative scowl.

"Bribery is a completely valid parenting choice," he muttered under his breath as Tarusk demolished the treat. "Shut up."

Tarusk, easily more than twice Task's size in every dimension, smiled widely and then yawned, showing off a mouth full of cupcake remains and some sharp, sharp teeth.

"Were we telling a story?" Task prompted, as they all tried not to laugh.

"Aboleth," Greckles cackled.

"Ooh," Task slid into the seat next to Tarusk.

"A-Hem," Panic cleared his throat pointedly, and then jumped up to stand on the bench seat, gathering the nearby people into his audience.

"The five heroes arrived in the Alivastian sea, scared but prepared – able to breath under water though the cunning assistance of their wizard Willow. They dived into the water, expecting scenes of carnage, or at least clues, and instead found one of the missing sailors. Not drowned, he appeared to be happily breathing the water, but no Triton or Merfolk was he. He was hard at work, gathering up the spilled cargo and delivering it to a cave deep below. When questioned, he wasn't clear on why the task was important to him, he could only explain that it was what he had to do."

"He had a look on his face like he'd been hit by a two-by-four."

"Or like he'd just smoked some really good…" Zenrio was interrupted by Task clearing his throat pointedly, and didn't continue.

"The heroes conferred, considered their options, and eventually Borky the Orc made the winning suggestion. Greckles the Blue, more sneaky than ever in the deep blue sea, would stealth behind the industrious not-drowned sailor, and see what the cave had to offer."

Remy glanced around the small crowd that was forming around them, absorbed in Panic's tale. He couldn't make out many faces past the tight circle of his friends, but he could see the comfort in them, their familiarity with this moment of shared adventure directed by a skilled orator.

"They watched the sailor return to his cave, followed at a distance as Greckles disappeared from sight. And they waited at the entrance to the cave for his signal… and waited… and waited.  
"Task the Ranger made the first move, knowing the water breathing would not last if they waited any further. He dove into the cave, wielding his bow, attacks readied. His allies followed close behind, not knowing what to expect.  
"The aboleth was enormous, a body of slimy grey, and more tentacles than one could easily count. One of those tentacles was holding the informant around the waist… another holding Greckles by the head as though he was a rag doll. As it turned to face the heroes, Greckles was released… and he turned on his allies, blade raised, eyes full of rage." Panic waited a beat as the crowd obligingly gasped and 'oooh'ed.

"Now the scene seems disastrous, but your heroes are powerful. They dodged the attacks from their kenku friend, Borky the Orc landing several savage blows on the legendary beast, Zenrio the Triton turning the very sea to his command, and finally Panic the Tiefling Bard (that's me), was able to counter-charm the power that held Greckles enthralled."

Greckles leaned in, to mutter; "Borky didn't realise Panic had counter-charmed me, he slapped me so hard I thought he'd knocked my beak sideways."

"Together your heroes destroyed the beast in its very lair, freeing the informant from its slimy grasp." There was some whooping from the crowd as Panic reached his crescendo, but they quieted as Panic held up a hand.

"But our story doesn't end yet, for the mystery still remains. How did the two rescuees come to breathe water? In fact, I have some knowledge for you, and I hope you never come to need it, but here it stands: in proximity to the aboleth the water contains a toxin that makes anything exposed to it breath water rather than air – and in fact as they reached the surface your heroes all gasped like beached fish. Fortunately this effect wanes after an hour. Worse though – the toxin in its neat form, on the tentacles of the creature, turns on exposure to air into a vicious acid. And to their horror, as they sailed for land, Greckles' feathers started to smoke and singe."

Remy suppressed a grin as – like a street magician – Greckles flourished off the eyepatch for the crowd, to gasps and cries.

The wound wasn't terribly gory, clearly long healed, but there was a deep scar that curled around from the side of his face and up over the missing eye, the area devoid of feathers and startlingly pale in contrast to his bold feather colour.

What he wouldn't give to have the confidence to show off his scars with such pride. But perhaps it was Panic's storytelling that made the difference.

Greckles retied the bandana with practiced movements as Panic wrapped up the tale and the crowd started to disperse.

"You toned it down," Task complained, as Panic bowed to the thinning crowd.

"The kids were listening," Panic retorted, reaching across everyone's heads to gesture at a passing waitress. "They don't need to know how close we all came to dying in that cave."

Remy smiled as he considered that Panic probably meant the group of twenty-something guild adventurers, when he said 'kids'. "A close call?" Remy asked.

"The sailor didn't make it." Greckles answered him. "We never even got his name. By the time Panic got the countercharm off, Task was unconscious, and Panic and Borky were both… well, let's just say I wasn't the only one with scars after. Mine are just a bit harder to cover up in any kind of subtle way."

"I mean, thanks for not mentioning, bro," Zenrio leaned in. "But I spent the majority of that fight as a decorative lump of coral, so…"

"It didn't even taste good," Greckles sighed. "Bwakkaw had me hooked on the idea that it would be…" He sighed.

Panic plopped back down onto the seat with a fresh drink, clearly pleased with himself. "So… Remy, Greckles… There's something you two need to talk about."

"Panic?" Greckles asked, brow furrowed.

"Greckles, Remy's going to tell you something about his eyes."

"What?" Greckles asked, confused as he looked between Panic and Remy.

"Panic, really?" Remy asked.

"Believe me, it'll be worth it."

"You're drunk." It was more growl than statement, but Panic didn't back down.

"Believe. Me."

"I… uh… My sight is not what it was before," Remy finally ground out.

Panic flourished his hands. "Today's spectacular understatement from the guy whose eyesight used to be able to tell enemies from allies at two miles."

"Remy, what is he talking about?" Greckles wasn't looking at Panic anymore, holding Remy's gaze as heat flushed in his cheeks.

"At a distance of ten feet, your face would be a blur to me. At twenty feet I'd barely be able to make out your shape. Is that clear enough for you, Panic? Have you finished embarrassing me?"

"Oh," Greckles said, quietly, distantly.

"Oh!" Task echoed, cackling with some insider knowledge that Remy wasn't privy to.

"Greckles," Panic continued, his voice sing-song. "Do you want to tell Remy why you got so mad you put your fist through a wall?"

"What!?" Remy demanded.

Greckles cleared his throat, now the one avoiding eye contact. "We weren't allowed into that part of the high district, but I snuck in to see you. I thought maybe your family was… stopping us from seeing you. "

"You were… stalking me?"

Greckles shrugged. "We found out you'd been released from the temple, and I came to check if… if you'd see us. And I was standing at the end of the street and you were… still healing. The side of your beak was all… You looked like death warmed up, and you were looking right at me as you walked towards me. Before I could say… anything, you turned and headed off another way. And I didn't even think… didn't *consider* that you might not have seen me, because it was *you*."

"And you… punched a wall?"

"I spent a night in jail for trespassing and destruction of property."

Remy huffed a laugh. "For breaking into the high district? You were lucky it was just a night."

"I might have lied about tracking down a lead. I might have lied a lot, at volume."

Panic leaned in. "Doros had to go get him, and escort him down to the low district. He wouldn't explain to any of us for months."

"I didn't explain to any of you. Doros told Willow, and Willow said something to Scarbles and then Borky found out and…" Greckles waved his hands vaguely. "I wasn't proud of myself, okay?"

Remy cleared his throat, forcing down his laughter in the face of Greckles' embarrassment. "I'm sorry… that you thought I was avoiding you. And I'm also sorry that I did avoid this reunion for so long. I've truly missed you all."

Task snorted and left the table without looking back.

Greckles watched him go with a tight expression before turning back. "We've missed you too."

~

It was hours later, drinks being put in front of him and people coming to talk to him; people he knew, people he wasn't sure he knew, and people he definitely didn't know but knew him either through association or through Panic's stories. He hadn't spoken to this many people for this long in a very long time, and he was buzzing when Brorc announced that it was time for him to head out and left him briefly alone at the table.

He was considering sneaking out to Panic's promised room – he was nowhere to be seen, and the night was starting to slowly wrap up, Remy was unlikely to be missed.

As he finished the last of the drink he'd been nursing for the last hour, Greckles wandered over and took a seat beside him. They sat shoulder to shoulder in silence for a long moment.

"I can't, hand on heart, tell you that I'm sober right now," Greckles said, then cleared his throat. "But I'm not totally drunk."

"OK," Remy said. "That's… good?"

"What about you?"

"I… the same?"

"Good. Come to bed with me?"

Remy's brain stalled. "I… uh…"

"If you just wanna sleep, that's fine. I… To be clear, I don't… just want to sleep. But I will, if that's what you want."

"Greckles, I am…"

"If you're about to use some argument about how you're not hot anymore because you're scarred, just fucking stop. Neither of us are kids anymore, we fight for a living, and we've been through some shit. I just wanna do something that makes us both feel good. If you don't want to, like… you've grown out of that fucking crush and you don't find me attractive anymore, then that's…"

Remy interrupted the rambling speech by leaning in close and giving him a peck, like all those years ago. Chuckling at the startled look it earned him.

"Sure, let's do that."

The sudden move made his head spin, but they both made it through to the halls and up the stairs without any mishap. The architecture had changed again since he was here last, making space for the new adventurers who had joined the Unexpectables Guild. One of Gruul's children – a half-orc teenaged girl named Edith, who was oddly polite and timid for her substantial build and the familiar shape of Raunfalt on her back – travelled with the main team more often than not since Borky had retired.

Greckles pulled him out of contemplation of the new layout, and into his room. Remy had slept on the floor in here once or twice, and it had barely changed in all the intervening years. The immaculate magical fan was set on a specially made mount, with one of Robin's smaller painted fans on its own hook beside it. Weapons had pride of place on the dresser, more now than before, but still each one meticulously cared for.

Greckles stepped in close, drawing his attention.

"Good?"

"Yes."

"Please don't touch this side of my face without warning me," he touched his blind side, and then pulled off the eyepatch, dropping it to the floor before starting on his outer clothes. "It doesn't hurt or anything, I just don't see it coming and…"

"You don't have to explain," Remy interrupted.

"Sure," Greckles smiled. "You gonna stay dressed?" His tone was teasing, as he dropped his clothes into a careless pile and turned. "Or do you want help?"

Remy unclasped his cloak and dropped it over the chair that sat at the little writing desk. His gambeson unbuckled easily enough, but he still hesitated before taking it off and pulling at the tunic underneath, and then his underclothes to fold carefully onto the pile.

He half expected a gasp or a hiss as he uncovered the featherless, scarred skin that covered half his chest and back, wrapping up his neck and down one hip. He'd heard more than one such reaction from trained clerics, but Greckles was just smiling when he turned.

"There you are," he said.

His feathers were ruffled from the removal of his clothing, and Remy reached out to smooth them back into place, following as Greckles stepped backwards and tipped onto the bed.

It didn't take them long to exhaust themselves, drunk as they were, and they fell together into a slovenly sprawl, pressing into one another. Remy was on the verge of sleep when Greckles' breath hitched, and he shifted him into a tight hug without exposing his beak from where it was buried in Remy's chest.

"He's going to be missed," Remy said, feeling his throat tighten in the face of Greckles' distress. He'd done a good job of holding himself together, just like he'd promised himself. It had been an overwhelming day, but he'd taken the decision to stay – however engineered – so he had to stay strong a while longer. "He was something unique."

Greckles' arms tightened as he sobbed, and Remy held on.

~

The bed was empty when he woke the following morning, though he had the vaguest memory of Greckles leaving with the dawn.

Whether with the late night, the alcohol, or… other exertions, Remy was stiff and sore as he managed to get himself upright and start his morning exercises in the small room. His hands were bad, the left refusing to relax out of a tight curl, but the rest eased as he stretched.

The door opened as he was finishing up, and he stumbled to a stop as Greckles limped in, looking tired and melancholy, but finding a smile. "Don't let me interrupt."

Even after spending more than a few hours with him the previous day, the new voice was still somewhat startling, but it was growing on him.

"I meant to ask," Remy said, as he continued to stretch. "Why are your feathers in such bad condition? I thought it might be just pigment loss, but you're dry as a bone."

Greckles cleared his throat. "Well… if you must know, I'm not as young as I was and… I don't know, maybe I got hurt or something because I'm not producing waterproofing anymore."

"Sure, it happens to us all. But even if you don't like the scented ones, there has to be some unscented brands out there that wouldn't spoil your sneaky…"

"Excuse me, what?" Greckles interrupted.

Remy stopped stretching and turned. "Greckles, you do know that most kenku stores sell synthetic feather oil, right?" Remy paused, taking in Greckles' dumbfounded expression. "You didn't know that. You've been… I'm surprised your feathers aren't in worse condition, to be honest. What happens when you get wet?"

"I've stopped using the bathhouse. There was a mission where I got dumped in the river a few months ago, and I nearly died. Panic spent nearly an hour prestidigitation-ing all the water out of my feathers."

"You're disasters. All four… all three of you."

"Yeah, we are." Greckles took a seat, one foot curled up underneath him, the other one hanging. "I sometimes wonder how we survived as long as we did, you know? We've had adventurers working for us for a long time now, and we're so strict on who we let in. Sometimes it feels so hypocritical because there's no way any of us would have made it through the hoops we make them jump through.  
"We were lucky, so many times. We've had some kids get in over their heads and… not make it home. Luck just… changing on the flip of a coin and nothing anyone could have done. And the people who were around them, the people who couldn't save them…"

"You were lucky, yes, but also incredibly skilled. I'm not saying the ones the Guild has lost weren't skilled, understand, but there's a reason that the four of you were picked out by Gods."

"I haven't told the others yet – I don't know how to – but I'm planning to retire. I've been planning and putting it off for… a while now. Since… well, some things are pretty hard to deny." He flexed his toes, one foot moving in an awkward twist alongside the other's natural movement. "Everytime I think I'm ready I think about how they'll react, and…"

"They'll understand, Greckles. Maybe more so now than before."

"I don't want to stop adventuring, because if I don't take a job and it goes to one of the other groups, and it goes badly for them…" Greckles took a breath. "I don't want to retire, but I know I need to, because as much as I'd rather die than any one of them get so much as a scratch, it would be worse if one of them died because I couldn't move fast enough or quietly enough."

Remy finished his exercises, rubbing at his hand to try and warm it enough to get some mobility back. "You know, it's not just your skill that got you by. You had good friends as well, and you knew you could reach out to them for help. And those young guild adventurers, they know they've got you and Panic and Task to back them up if they need it. Literal heroes ready to help. Nothing is going to change their luck, but they know they have access to some of the most powerful backup the city can provide."

Greckles hummed, considering. "I worry about Panic and Task, if I retire. I've been testing the water with a couple of replacements, bringing them in to do cover for me while I make myself scarce. Borky passing felt like a shock, but it wasn't really; we haven't left the city in almost a year. As soon as his health started to decline we didn't want to risk being too far away. It's worse for them, worse than when Helga or Mr Borpington or Scarbles passed, it's a reminder that unless they die on some stupid adventure somewhere, the rest of us are going to keep dying around them."

"What happened when Borky retired? I can't picture it."

"I know it's not the same for the longer lived races, but there's a point you hit where you keep getting stronger but your ability to rest the night and go again the following morning just… stops. We didn't recognise it in Borky for too long, and he didn't tell us it was happening. He just started going down faster, and struggling to get up afterwards. He'd sleep in and still wake up exhausted until we started missing him out of watches so that he could rest longer. And then one day he got knocked unconscious and we couldn't get him back up." Greckles' voice broke, and he cleared his throat.  
"We waited too long to talk him into retirement. And he hated it. He fought against it with everything he had. He judged every single potential replacement against some unobtainable standard. He refused to let us leave town until we reconsidered. He fought *dirty*. But the memory of us pouring every healing potion and spell into him and him *not getting up*…"

"His stubbornness was unparalleled."

"It wasn't until Edith decided to stay that he started to lean into it. He gave her Raunfault as his kind of blessing. Poor girl didn't know what to do with this ridiculous legendary weapon, and Raunfault was just as stubborn as Borky was at letting go."

"What made you decide it was time for you?"

"Like I said, it's been a while since we left town, but there's plenty of scraps to get into here. I'm not… I'm not waking up fully healed any more. I can feel it. So… retirement now, before they have to see it get any worse. There's a training position that Brorc had offered me, and the guild upkeep takes enough of my time to keep me distracted."

"Worthy pursuits."

They were both quiet for a moment before Greckles cleared his throat. "Can I ask you a question?"

"I'll do my best to answer it."

"How do you distract yourself from… not being there for people, and knowing they're out there getting into trouble?"

The question hit like a dagger between the ribs, unexpected and perfectly aimed. Remy took a breath, took a moment to pull on his gambeson to give him time to find words.

"You saw me struggling with not being able to return to the griffin riders, you saw how sullen and poor tempered I was at not being able to help them. I am not the best person to ask for advice on this. The moment I could return to them, I did without hesitation or question."

"That was something unavoidable, political bullshit."

"Greckles, if you're asking how I decided not to return to the Unexpectables after…" Remy swallowed down hurt, not knowing how to continue.

Greckles shook his head sharply. "No. Not… how do you *distract* yourself? You were… so hurt. I don't… it would have been madness for you to come out and fight with us. But you must have wanted… Look, I know I'm not fit to fight anymore. It's not a choice, just like it wasn't a choice for you. But part of me wants to just keep going as if there's nothing wrong and even knowing it's a stupid idea… I need a distraction."

"I don't think I can offer advice here, because you and I Greckles, we are very different people. When I heard that Solly had died while I was at the front, the realisation that I had chosen one group of friends over another, and that maybe one more sword, one more shield at your side might have changed the tides of that battle, might have saved Solly's life… In that moment I knew that none of you would ever forgive me for the choice I had made. And I was worthless to you as I was then, so I couldn't even come and fight alongside you until I could find some way to make up for that oversight. So no… I never thought about rejoining you on the battlefield. I thought I had lost all right to even be in your presence. I didn't reach out to you, and I refused all visitors because I know it would hurt every time it wasn't you. I'm lucky that I have family who allows me to be slovenly with my time. I have helped my family in small tasks where I am able, and the rest of the time I spend regretting." Remy dragged himself to a stop before he could spill any more truths that he'd hoped to keep to himself.

Greckles just stared for a long time. "I…" he started, and then; "Remy, we…" He pressed a hand to his face, sighing. "You are the *worst* kind of idiot."

"It's been mentioned." Remy tried to laugh, but it sounded weak even to his own ears.

"You make so many assumptions for others, and the worst ones for yourself. It's been… fuck… decades since Solly died, and your self-aggrandising bullshit has spent all this time… what? Blaming yourself for her death? Thinking we were blaming you? She had fucking *gods* playing tug of war over her, but you thought one more good sword might have made a difference?" Greckles voice choked for a moment, and he cleared his throat. Took a moment. "You were off fighting a literal war to keep Alivast safe, you nearly died yourself. More than once Winter has mentioned times when you *were* critical there, but one person I loved died, and that was somehow the reason to… You're fucking infuriation itself."

"It's fair to say, that's been said too."

"Look, Solly died. It was horrific, and there was not a single thing any mortal being could do about it. While I was mourning her, I found out that another of my dear friends had survived a near fatal experience, and I was overjoyed. One of those things didn't overwhelm the other, they didn't…" Greckles flailed his hands around as he searched for words. "Cancel each other out. And we missed you, you asshole, not in battle, but in the bar, hanging out, telling stories, sharing drinks and restaurant dinners and late night highjinks."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop being… just stop. I'm retiring, and I am going to be desperate for distractions from my friends being in danger without me watching their backs. I'm going to be here in Alivast a lot more from here on out. And hey, I hear you're around a lot more these days. Let's hang out more. Catch up. What do you say?"

Remy let it all wash over him, the fear, the relief and the forgiveness. "I'd… like that."

And that was all there was to say.


	2. these stones are heavy, but look at everything we built

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Immediate regret at not being able to write for Borky. This was a stupid idea for a story.

Remy was still feeling somewhat scattered as Greckles proposed breakfast in the bar, explaining that the trainees and the guild's adventurers would all have eaten already and be out on the training grounds, leaving the kitchen free to raid before they came back in for lunch.

The Sweet Dragon had been cleaned up since the previous night's wake, and the painting of Borky that had been on the bar had been moved to hang on the wall behind, alongside other absent friends.

There was the smell of breakfast foods, obvious evidence of the meal they were arriving late for, and Remy was pointed at a small table as Greckles limped off through the door into the kitchen

As he took a seat, the front door to the inn opened. Even with the sound to help, Remy couldn't pinpoint who had come into the empty bar until a mountain of a man came close enough to be made out.

"May I join you?" Balton's voice hadn't changed in the slightest in all the years since Remy had fought under his command, and Remy leapt to his feet at startled attention.

"General Balton."

"Remy, sit, please," he pulled out the only other chair at the table and waited until Remy sat before sitting himself. "I heard I might have an opportunity to see you here today, I'm sorry for interrupting your breakfast."

Remy sat awkwardly, glancing towards the kitchen and Greckles, and wishing he'd been able to recognise the General early enough to not have been so blindsided by his presence. "Is there something I can help you with, sir?" Had he been waiting for them to come into the bar, waiting for Greckles to step away, or was this just poor timing? The bar wasn't even open to the public yet.

"It's nice to see you out and about." Balton pulled his attention back.

"… Sir?"

"I'm not in Alivast all that often, to tell the truth," he mused, and then didn't say anything else for a long beat. There was something about this quiet consideration that made Remy's gut clench into ready status. Balton was bright and loud and jovial when talking casually about things that didn't matter, but this was Balton focused, in war mode, and he was racking his mind for what this could be about.

"You're a very busy man…" Remy offered, when it became apparent Balton wasn't going to say anything else.

He cleared his throat. "Your sister… your entire family, for that matter, but your sister especially is a force to be reckoned with. She would have been an asset to the army."

Remy narrowed his eyes, familiar with the recruitment practices of the Army. Aria was too old and too wily to be pulled into the Vetrion Army's grasp, but he wasn't going to have his family pushed around. 

"It was our loss that her interests lay elsewhere, but Alivast's gain," he emphasised.

"Certainly, certainly. But what I wanted to clarify, from your comment yesterday, was that it was not from lack of trying that we have been out of touch. Your family have formed a defensive perimeter around you to rival any military force I have seen. I'm not clear whether it was something you requested, or a punishment for the way in which you were returned to them, but I hoped that we would have a chance to talk once hostilities ceased."

Remy was suddenly very aware of the curt tone he had used with the general the previous day, emboldened by adrenaline and the idea that this conversation would never happen. "General, I…"

"It's become apparent," Balton continued over him. "That I was not direct enough in my intent in this matter. You are a highly skilled and highly trained knight of Valithea, one of relatively few surviving who were part of Valithea's rigorous training programs before the fall. Regardless of your current fitness, your skills and your knowledge are invaluable to the Vetrion army. If you could be persuaded, we would have you as a trainer here in Alivast."

Remy's heart was jack-rabbiting in his throat, and he startled hard enough to clatter his elbow against the chair arm as plates of aromatic, steaming breakfast staples were deposited on the table.

"Balfor, you know we're not open yet, right?" Greckles asked, his voice stern and his face turned to Balton.

"I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds, Remy." Balton continued, maybe reading something of Remy's loss of composure in his expression. "It wasn't my intention."

"The bar will be open later, Balfor," Greckles ground out.

"It's… fine, sir," Remy finally choked out. "Thank you for… I'll be in contact."

Balfor Balton stood, Remy standing a half beat behind him, and clasped Greckles on the shoulder. "My sincere condolences, once again. Borky was a titan, and will be missed. Please pass my praise on to your bard – an inspiring tribute."

"Sure," Greckles glanced out over the bar, nodding. "Say hi to Aila for us. And thank her for… warning us. Giving us time to be there."

The general's face lit up at his wife's name, "Yes indeed, she wouldn't have had it any other way. You know, while it has been an unpleasant reason for such a gathering, it's thrilling to have some time with her. We have a night booked at the Romansian, I've been all tingly with anticipation."

"General, please," Greckles complained.

He chortled to himself and left with a casual wave as Remy tried to avoid crashing to the ground, every limb turned to jelly.

"What was all that…" Greckles started to ask, as Remy lost his battle with gravity. "Remy, woah."

He made it to the floor relatively slowly, wrapping an arm over his head as he fought the urge to hyperventilate.

"Hey," a hand rested on his leg for a beat. "Remy, just breathe. Just… In and out. Panic!" Greckles yelled from next to him, and then again from further away.

The tiny part of Remy's mind that was still semi-functional as he started to lose control of his breathing was screaming about how this was not the right place, nor the right time for this, but he wasn't in a position to wrench back control.

Someone new slid in on his right and he lurched away from the contact, but his vision had tunnelled to a pinprick of light and he was just aware of the smell of old booze and a gentle lyrical humming.

Training let him recognise a spell being cast even through his current turmoil, and he instinctually fought it for the moment it took to recognise Panic's voice, and then the vice around his chest eased and he could take full breaths again. He felt tired and limp as the effect took hold, and then distantly embarrassed.

"Sorry." With oxygen and awareness of his surroundings returning, he found Panic sitting on the floor to his right, Greckles perched directly in front of him, half under the table. "That was… mortifying."

Panic chuckled and bumped their shoulders together. "Don't worry about it. That spell's been seeing a lot of use in the last week." His voice was a lowered whisper, and Remy couldn't tell if he was still drunk or veering into hungover. His own head was starting to pound with the ebbing adrenaline.

Greckles, wide-eyed, reached out a hand to rest on his and Remy fought to find a smile at the contact.

"We should get you home," Panic mused. "We can be a lot, and I imagine…"

"What, Panic, no!" Greckles interrupted immediately, and Remy could see Panic's flinch at the volume.

With a rougher tone, Panic continued: "Greckles, go get Task up. We'll eat breakfast and then we'll walk Remy home."

"Remy, you can stay longer. Don't feel like you…"

Remy cleared his throat. "Greckles, I appreciate it, I do. But I'm not used to this anymore. I need a little more space."

Greckles pulled his hand back sharply, and Remy wished he had the good sense to think before he spoke. "You were fine until Balfor…"

"Greckles," Panic interrupted, his tone gone sharp. "Go get Task for breakfast."

"Fine," Greckles ground out, standing and limping for the door.

Panic glanced up sharply. "And for the love of your Orun, strap up your damned foot. I can't threaten you with Borky anymore, stop being such a child about it."

Greckles didn't reply, and Remy could hear his uneven steps heading down the hallway.

They sat for a long moment, and Remy felt the spell end. He grasped at the artificial stability it had provided with two hands and pushed to his feet to sit back in the chair he had abandoned. Panic took Greckles' seat and started picking at the food that was abandoned on the table.

"You don't have to go," he said bluntly as Remy rubbed at his temples. "But this place gets busy, and I suspect you would find that increasingly difficult."

"You'd be right," Remy acknowledged, clearing his throat awkwardly.

There was a pause as there were the sounds of people moving around in the kitchens and the inn above. Panic ate a couple of bites of food and then pushed the plate away, looking a little pale.

"You didn't sleep in my room last night," he observed as he lent back, perhaps going for an artful sprawl in the chair, but mostly looking hungover and dishevelled.

Remy cleared his throat. "No. No, I did not."

Panic 'Hmm'ed to himself, a little smile appearing. "No wonder he's clingy."

"And where did you sleep last night?"

"Under table number six," Panic pointed across the room superfluously.

Remy had a sinking moment to realise that he had maybe misinterpreted Panic's declaration that he wouldn't be sleeping in his own room the previous night. That was a very premeditated level of self-destruction. "It might be presumptuous, but is there anything we can do to get you through today without a drink?"

"A walk across town in good company with what I suspect is blazing sunshine… sure to cure the worst of it." He chuckled roughly, and with a shake of his head Remy crossed the bar to the pitcher of water that was sat on the counter and poured two cups. "I have sunglasses, and a parasol."

Between the one non-compliant hand, and a persistent adrenaline shake, it was more of an ordeal that it should have been, but he was able to put one cup pointedly in front of Panic without making too much of a fool of himself. He was going to consider that an achievement given the current state of the day.

"We're going to head up to Everbright in a few days," Panic said into the quiet, taking a sip of the water. "Spend some time with Lily. She couldn't leave the animals to come to the funeral, so we said we'd go to her, have a little private wake. You should come."

Remy considered. "Lily was Borky's druid friend? I think we only met once or twice."

"You're welcome to join us, is all I'm saying. We'll be travelling slowly; he denies it, but Greckles doesn't travel fast anymore. I would be good to catch up."

There was an instinctual rejection on Remy's tongue, but he was saved from having to voice it by another voice.

"Is there any food left?" Task, in the doorway with a stark white figure beside him.

"Oh, you're here," Panic greeted them. "When did you get in?" There was a pause, and then Panic continued; "Well, you made it despite his assholery," as if he were replying to an answer Remy hadn't heard.

It wasn't much of a leap to guess that it was Winter, although he wasn't sure until she was closer and then she was right up close, pressing a tight hug around his shoulders.

"Winter," he greeted, turning into the embrace. "It's… been a while."

He urged her back a step so that he could see her face, and he had time to take in her smile and the casual tunic she was wearing – very different from the armour he was more familiar with – before she was darting away to Task's confused; "Hey!" as he brought over more chairs.

Remy watched her go, feeling his heart ache at far too much time and too much distance between him and the people he cared most about in the world.

"What's with her?" Task asked, looking after her. He sounded bristly and sharp, and with a sharp wrench Remy had their interaction from the previous day in the front of his mind. As Task disappeared into the kitchen, he was left trying to think of something he could say, some way he could apologise for… being another person to abandon Task of IronOath.

Perhaps he was overthinking it, and perhaps Task had already forgotten words spoken in the midst of a stressful day, but there was no denying that he had clearly held on to some of that for a long time, and Remy had no one to blame but himself.

Task returned with more food, shuffling the two barely touched plates of food around the table to make room for his own.

Remy was looking for words, but everything felt like too much right now. Strange that this quiet, intimate interaction – three of them around a table in the quiet bar – felt so much harder than yesterday's bustling crowded intensity. Perhaps just that yesterday had been intense and so had last night, and all of his ability to deal with people had been used up.

"O…kay," Panic said, quiet against the blood rushing in Remy's ears. "We're going to take in some air for a minute. We'll be right back, leave us some food."

Too confused to struggle as Panic pulled at his arm, he let himself be led out through the back of the bar and into the small courtyard that backed onto the main thoroughfare – probably where barrels got delivered to the cellar. Panic was squinting into the dull spring sunlight, and Remy's hands were shaking again.

"What…" he managed, only to realise his voice was shaking as well.

"I can calm emotions all day long," Panic said quietly. "But that's not actually helping, and you know it. Take a minute, take however long you need, and if you need calm emotions to get you through breakfast, that's fine, I can do that. If you need to leave now, I'll walk you home. The others will understand."

Lots of words piled up behind Remy's tongue, denials and I'm fine and I hate this and more. Instead all that came out was an unexpected sob, and then another. A hand coaxed him towards an empty barrel, and he stumbled to a seat as every inch of composure fled.

It seemed to take a long time to find space to breathe, but eventually the wave of emotion subsided, leaving him hiccupy and even more shaky than before.

"I don't… I don't know what to say to him. How to explain…"

The words stumbled to a stop and Panic tilted his head, considering.

"To *Task*?" He waited for Remy's nod. "Look, Task explodes sometimes, granted it's been less since… Anyway. It's not like you didn't know this about him. Maybe he meant what he said, maybe he didn't, but I can tell you he's not unhappy you're here."

"Gods," he muttered, as much to himself as to Panic, who had taken a seat on the floor beside him, eyes closed against the sun. "What a scene I'm making."

"There's no one here to judge you. I could tell you how Task and Greckles have been handling all this, if it would make you feel better."

"Borky was one of your closest friends. I have no right to be…"

"Oh, fuck off," Panic interrupted sharply. "It's not a fucking competition. Did you really think you could just flip a switch and you'd just be fine?"

Remy shook his head. "I'm as healed as I ever will be, I'm…"

"Not your… not your *body*, you idiot. Look, we are the absolute worst, least well-adjusted people you could want to find, but even we can tell you that panic attacks are not normal, and you can't just shrug that off and say you're fine. That's a sign you're not fine."

"I've spent a lot of time hiding," Remy cleared his throat awkwardly. "I was… safe in the space I could control, and for a long time I didn't want that to change. But this… Borky's death has been a wake up call. I can't wait around until all my friends are out of reach and then complain that I didn't have enough time with them."

Panic stayed quiet for a long beat, and then sighed, shaking his head. "Change doesn't happen all at once. You can't go from nothing to everything and expect your mind to keep up."

"It's got to fall in line like the rest of me," Remy laughed, only slightly hysteric.

"Let me know how that works out for you. Oh, no wait… I *know* how that's working out for you."

"Hey," he snorted. "Which of us slept on the floor of a bar last night?"

"Hmm…" Panic cleared his throat. "Speaking of, I should really change. My clothes smell of old beer."

"Just your clothes?"

"Hey. I might have been sleeping in spilled beer, but I was *drinking* absinthe." Panic gave an eyebrow wiggle.

"Gods, you're in a state."

"Can I break in, gentlemen?" Greckles' voice was full of concern from the doorway, and Remy glanced down at his hands to find them still, no longer shaking.

"Go get dressed, drunkard." Remy stood and headed for the door. "I'm not taking you into the high district smelling like that."

"Everything okay?" Greckles asked as Remy passed him and started towards the bar.

"Working on it," Remy returned with more confidence than he felt.

A couple of other tables were filling up as they came into the bar, some jovial young guild members taking turns serving up lunch food from the kitchen hatch. Task and Winter were still sitting around the smaller table, enough chairs brought around for three more.

Winter smiled up at him as Remy took his seat again beside Greckles, ignoring curious glances. Paper, carefully folded, was pushed across the table towards him. There was writing on the front in a language he didn't recognise.

"Is this for me?" he asked her. It was a piece of paper folded into a long envelope, he found as he turned it over. It looked aged, crumpled at the corners like it had travelled a long distance.

Winter made a gesture, and then several more, looking towards him with some kind of anticipation. There was a pause, and then she turned to Task and gave him a sharp elbow.

He scowled at her, swallowing. "I had food in my mouth, give me a break." He wiped his mouth. "She's had it for years, waiting to see you again. Didn't trust the pseudodragons with it."

She gestured again, this time towards Task, and Remy realised all at once that it was *sign language*.

"Is this new?" he asked, gesturing to her hands.

She rolled her eyes at him, her hands moving precisely. "Sixteen years, not new," Task interpreted, smirking.

The smile was reassuring, but Remy felt the impact of the separation all the same. So many things he'd missed and no one to blame but himself. He swallowed it down. "Forgive me, it's been a long time."  
She shot him a toothy grin, nodding her agreement.

His talons went to the seal on the envelope, and Task caught his hand before he could break through it.

"Sorry," he said as Remy startled. "Just… I know we're all feeling a bit tender right now, and that," Task indicated the envelope. "Doesn't have your name on it."

"It… doesn't?" Remy turned the envelope back over and considered the label, presumably in draconic script.

"No. It says Volo."

Greckles made a choked noise beside him.

Remy smoothed his fingers over the paper where it lay flat on the table, feeling the feathers within. He swallowed and tucked the envelope unopened into his gambeson. Later, he promised himself.

"Thank you," he said, feeling the sincerity to his bones.

Winter grabbed both his hands and squeezed.

~

While the worst of the clouds had parted, it was still a spring morning and the sun wasn't terribly bright, which only made Panic look more ridiculous in his sunglasses and with his parasol over one shoulder.

It was a strange feeling, walking the Alivastian streets with the Unexpectables beside him, like nothing had changed in the intervening years. They observed things and joked and made fun and nothing at all could be taken seriously in their presence.

Borky's absence was a hole, and it stung with every hesitation where their familiarity with one another had anticipated a comment he might have had, but it was clear it that the wound wasn't as bloody as it might have been if he had fallen in combat. They'd had time to prepare for this. Time to travel without him, to find a new rhythm.

Task had been quiet, only adding the occasional comment or sharply humorous remark.

Remy found himself considering all the ways there were to say what he needed to say. He let Panic and Greckles step forward, dropping into step with the kobold. "Task, I wanted to apologise to you."

Task glanced up at him, quirking the edge of a smile. "Funny, I was thinking I maybe needed to do that."

"What do you have to apologise for?"

Task made a thoughtful noise. "I wasn't the most welcoming when you turned up yesterday. It probably wouldn't have been my first choice of words to say when we saw you again if I'd planned it ahead of time."

Remy considered for a moment, pretended to ignore Panic's curious glance back at them. "It wasn't my intention to disappear on you all without letting you know what had happened. But I didn't do anything to change it after the fact. I regret that, in a lot of ways."

He shrugged. "You were the one who lost out."

"I don't doubt it. If I'd been… braver, perhaps this could have been resolved a lot sooner, and a lot of things would have been different. But I wasn't, and so we only have what we have now."

Task seemed to consider this for a while. "It would be good to see you more often. If only for Greckles' sake. He's always surly without you around."

"Hey!" Greckles yelled back, only for Panic to catch his arm and drag him forward through the crowd a couple of paces, returning the illusion of privacy.

Remy cleared his throat to hide laughter. "Panic says you're planning to travel to Everbright in a few days, would you allow me to join you? I've heard the road is getting more established, it should be a safe journey."

Task seemed to consider it for a moment before smiling his way. "It would be good to catch up. To tell you some stories."

Feeling the last of the tension slide away to leave only bone-deep weariness, Remy nodded his thanks, and looked forwards.

~

The high district was happy to let the little group in on a day pass, which had always felt strange to Remy – these people had been the heroes of Alivast on more than one occasion, but they still needed him to vouch for them to enter a residential district?

Still, they didn't seem to take it personally, instead taking the opportunity to tease Remy for his neighbours. His little house had never seemed more welcoming, and he asked them all inside with no little pleasure.

"Tea?" he offered, reluctant to have this little interlude end.

"Anything harder?"

Remy gave Panic a long look. "No."

"I'll help you with the tea," Greckles said, herding Remy into the kitchen.

Cups and kettles and teapots came out of cupboards, and it wasn't until the water was set to boil that Greckles managed to spit out what he'd obviously been thinking about on the walk over.

"Look, I wanted to apologise for last night."

Remy would have felt trepidation if he had any adrenaline left. Instead he simply furrowed his brow. "For what part of last night?"

"The… uh… breakdown part. It wasn't…" Greckles trailed off.

"Greckles, I'm just happy I could be there for you. I didn't take it personally, I can assure you."

Greckles rearranged the cups distractedly. "Still."

"You watched me have a panic attack today. I think we're even on that front, don't you?"

Greckles considered. "That was pretty… dramatic. Does that happen often?"

"Not often, no," Remy cleared his throat. "And I'll admit I usually handle them better. Extenuating circumstances, I suppose."

"I remember times when you struggled with things, before," he said tentatively. "I know it's been a long time, and maybe we can't claim to know you all that well anymore, but this seemed different."

Remy considered lying for a long minute, but eventually the façade had to drop. "Those episodes have been more intense since I left active duty. Before it was just that I felt overwhelmed and struggled with my emotions. I tend to collapse instead of lash out these days, I'm… not entirely sure it's better."

Greckles hesitated, as if considering something. "You should try meditation again," he offered eventually. "Panic says it helps him sometimes. I could… help, give you some guidance, if you needed it."

"Perhaps I'll do that." Remy offered a smile. "Wait here for a minute." He ducked inside his room and grabbed the feather oil bottle from beside the wash basin. "Here," he pressed it into Greckles' hands as he let the door swing shut behind him. "Until you get the opportunity to find your own supplier."

"Oh." His eyes went wide. "Gods, yes. The bath house is calling my name! Remy you have no idea…"

"Yes, well. Just make sure you're fully treated first, I don't want to hear about you getting rotten feathers because you were so desperate for a bath."

There was a moment of silence as they both tried to work out what to say next before a shout from the next room, followed by a yelp of pain had them dashing for the door.

They opened it onto a scene of chaos, Panic pale and shouting as Task tried to remove the tiny kenku whose hooked beak was deep in the side of his hand.

"Antonio Passero!" Remy yelled, and Anto's eyes went wide, releasing Panic's hand with a gout of blood as Task hauled him bodily to one side.

There was a moment of pause as Task held Anto in the air, looking between him and Remy, and then he put him tentatively down on the ground. The boy hurtled across the room the moment his feet made contact, throwing himself bodily at Remy, already crying.

"What the…" Greckles said under his breath. "Panic, are you alright?"

"Fine," he replied tersely, already working to heal the bloody, but small wound.

"Anto," Remy said, adjusting his grip and kneeling so he could meet the boy's eyes. "Why aren't you at school?"

"Nonna said you were dead!" the fledgeling declared, sobbing into his side. "And we weren't sure, but then we came here and these guys wanted your house for themselves, and they can't have it, it's your house!"

Remy raised an eyebrow before looking up at the others. "Greckles, can you let Olive in please, I suspect she's just outside the door."

"Sure," Greckles chuckled. "Are these Aria's little ones?"

Remy snorted a laugh in reply. "Greckles, Aria's my age. These are Mia's children. Aria's *grandchildren*."

Greckles stood next to the open door, a dumbfounded look on his face as Olive charged past him ready for battle, only to stumble to a stop seeing Remy with Anto in his arms.

"See I said you were wrong!" she declared at a volume and pitch fit to break glass, pointing at them both.

"One of you is going to tell me why you thought it was a good plan to skip school and attack my friends."

Anto took a shuddering breath through his tears, moving his grip to Remy's neck in what would have been a strangle hold if his arms were a little longer. "Nonna said when people get older, sometimes they die," he declared. "And that you were going to a place where people go when they die-"

"A funeral!" Olive added, nodding along.

"And then she came back without you, she *left* you there! At the place the dead people go!"

Remy flinched a little, glancing at the others and trying to determine how the poorly phrased words were hitting the recently bereaved, but they looked more amused than anything.

"She said you wanted to be with your friends, not us," Olive added

Remy considered this, wincing slightly. "I'm fairly sure she didn't phrase it like that."

"And then Leo said you were probably dead, and that's why you had to stay at the funeral. But I didn't believe it, and Anto said we'd know for sure if you were here, because you're always here when we come over. And then there were these *other people* here..."

"Okay, okay," Remy interrupted what was turning into breathless hysteria. "Well, as you can see, I'm here. I'm not dead. And these are my friends, who are visiting and didn't deserve being bitten."

"Sorry," Anto muttered.

"Forgiven," Panic flourished his healed hand. "It sounds like you were defending Remy's property from intruders, I can respect such adventuring spirit."

"Dear Gods, don't encourage them," Remy muttered.

Task, having disappeared briefly into the kitchen to take the kettle from the stove, reappeared with a damp cloth which he offered to Remy, gesturing to his own snout. "It sounds like the school needs better staff," he observed as Remy wiped the blood from Anto's beak. "If they're just letting the kids wander off."

"Leo got Xerch to cast fog cloud," Anto said around Remy's ministrations. "Xerch likes to show off, and Leo's good at talking people into doing things. He stayed behind to distract the teacher, and because he's a wimp."

There was a moment of baffled confusion.

"How old are you, if your classmates are casting first level spells?" Greckles asked.

"I am five," Anto said, considering. "But I don't know how old Xerch is. He's learning spelling with us, but sometimes people don't learn spelling when they're small so they take extra classes. Also Olive is very good at spelling, and she helps us cheat to get into the higher class."

Remy groaned. "Anto, don't tell me that."

Anto considered this. "Olive *doesn't* help us cheat?" he said tentatively.

Remy resisted the urge to sigh. "Gentlemen, I'm not sure what the going rate is for national heroes, but I may have a mission for the Unexpectables. Two packages to deliver back to school with no teachers the wiser and no one blamed."

"I'm thinking monster in the fog cloud," Greckles offered, eyes bright as he pretended to consider.

"I'm sure I can spare a little invisibility," Panic added, not hiding a grin.

"That leaves me to scope out the school, let you know when you can move." Task turned to Remy, smirking. "I think we're in."

~

The short walk to the school didn't take long as the Unexpectables coached the children on their roles in the little farce that was about to unfold. Olive was amused, and Anto mostly confused, but willing to go along with it if it saved him getting into trouble with his teachers or (clearly more upsetting to him) his Nonna.

"What's a Nonna?" Greckles asked Remy under his breath as Anto tried to explain something that definitely had a connection to the current situation in his mind, even if none of the adults could see it.

"His Grandmother, Aria," Remy said with a smirk. "They spend a lot of time with her, their parents are both guards and can't always control their schedule."

"How do you get from Aria to 'Nonna'?"

Remy shook his head. "It's Valithian. Nonna, it means grandmother. Davide's family are from Eltmur, so on that side it's their Mémé."

"Mémé brings us sweets for the festivals, Nonna makes us do our homework," Olive said with a scowl.

"Ah, Mémé sounds much nicer," Greckles agreed at this wise explanation, hiding his smirk.

"I'll be right back," Task said as they rounded the last corner from the school and stepped into the shadows to await their scout.

Anto, having run out of steam on whatever he had been trying to explain, entertained himself by examining Panic's hand. "So I didn't hurt you at all?" he asked, his tone wavering between disappointment and relief.

"Anto," Remy chided.

"You did hurt me, kiddo. I'm lucky that I have magic to heal up the hurt. You shouldn't do that to anyone again unless they're trying to hurt your family, okay?"

Anto looked away. "Sure."

"It was a good attack though. Didn't see it coming at all."

"Panic, please stop encouraging them," Remy groaned.

There was a brief quiet as they waited on Task.

"Do you still speak Valithian with your family?" Greckles asked.

Remy considered it. "Rarely," he realised. "We fell out of the habit, I suppose. We had to learn Common fast as teenagers – it was unfashionable to have anything that identified you as 'other' in the high district and there were few enough kenku in the city back then. As soon as our mother started speaking solely Common, we just… stopped."

Greckles looked like he would say more, but Task dropped back to ground level. "The school's pretty active, they've clearly worked out that they're missing two kids. Plus, I think I see their mom and dad talking to one of the teachers."

"Uh oh," Panic said with a laugh.

"Is it no good? Do we gotta give up?" Anto asked, wide-eyed.

"I think we've still got this," Greckles reassured him. "Panic, you ready?"

Panic half knelt and pulled his guitar around. "Anto, Olive, look at me for a moment." He played a little melody, the two children watching curiously, and then he reached out both his hands. "Now high five!"

As they did, they both disappeared.

Olive's laugh was delighted and *loud*, and Panic immediately hushed her. "Hey, invisible but not silence, okay? You need to be very quiet. We're going to sneak over into the school yard as quickly and quietly as we can. Now keep hold of my hands…" Panic was quiet a beat. "Anto, did you let go of my hand?"

"I can't see your hand!" Anto declared, perilously close to tears.

"Hey, hey," Task stepped forward carefully, "Anto, you can see *my* hand, right?"

"Yes?"

"So you take my hand, and then Panic can take your hand from my hand." Task held out a hand into space, and then smiled. "That's great, now here comes Panic."

"Good thinking," Remy muttered as Task stepped back, transaction completed.

Task just rolled his eyes. "You learn to think fast when you're raising a dragon who's still learning what innate spellcasting he can do."

"That puts things into perspective," Remy considered.

"OK, Greckles give us a… 20 count?" Panic's voice said from the street ahead of them.

"Sure," Greckles grinned.

"OK kids, say see you later to your uncle, then we're sneaking."

There was a brief chorus of: "See you later!"

And then Anto stridently added: "Don't go to any more funerals!"

"I'm… not planning to." Remy answered. "Good luck."

And then they were gone. Greckles waited, counting slowly, and then his hands flashed through the practiced signs and he called the fog cloud. It was too far for Remy to see, but he heard the uncertain shouts as the fog rolled over the school yard for the second time that day, and he heard Mia's yell, followed by Panic's smooth lies as he explained everything away.

If anything came of it, Panic would come clean before it reached any authority, but with the usual baseline Alivastian weirdness, a stray fog cloud picking up two children and a well known musician for twenty minutes was far from the weirdest thing to happen even in the last few days.

"Does Mia look convinced?" he asked the other two.

"He looks more convinced, she looks sceptical," Task said. "But she's more interested in the kids than anything that Panic's saying. She's not challenging it."

Remy chuckled. "She's too smart for her own good."

~

Their mission completed, and tea finally drunk, Remy stood in his door as the others said their goodbyes and headed out. Greckles held back, letting the others get a little way down the street before turning back, his expression conflicted.

"You don't know how weird it feels to be saying goodbye to you right now. It's… surreal. Like we might turn back up tomorrow and this house won't exist and no one will tell us where you are or how to reach you."

"Greckles, I've said this to Panic and now I'm saying it to you. I'm making a change. No more hiding. I can't say I'll be back in the bar tomorrow, but I'm not out of reach."

"And you're coming to Everbright?"

Remy smiled. "I would like to."

There was a hesitation and Greckles blurted out; "Please don't disappear again," before snapping his beak shut and grimacing.

In the face of Greckles' distress, it was hard to bite back the urge to swear on his life never to disappoint him again, but Remy knew the cost of easy words and he also knew his own fickle health. "I can't guarantee it. But Greckles, I want to come with you on this trip, and if circumstances mean I can't then I will let you know."

Greckles sighed, shrugging, and then stepped forwards for a hug. "Then I guess that will have to be enough."

"Besides," Remy said into his shoulder. "You all know where I live now, and I swear this house isn't going to disappear. I imagine it would be folly to try and keep you away."

"Damned right." And with that Greckles pulled back and turned sharply to follow the others down the street, raising one hand in a wave.

Exhausted in more ways than one, Remy stepped back inside his refuge and finally gave himself permission to cry.


	3. for our lines will always cross, like patchwork on a quilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter length consistency - what's that?

There were worse things than forcing oneself to look critically at past mistakes, and decisions that had been allowed to fester for far too long.

There *were* worse things, but perhaps not many of them.

Remy was heartsore, grieving and full of regrets, but he was determined to make a change. He wrote a letter to Balton, as honest and devoid of self-defeating pride as he was able, explaining his current limitations in excruciating detail and closing with how interested he was in the potential post, if accommodations could be made.

He took the letter to the local sorting office himself, only to discover that a pseudodragon had delivered a letter for him that very morning. Returning home with his unexpected prize, he opened it to find a note in Greckles' hand, that just read 'retired' alongside a sketchy drawing of a triangular hat and a cloak hung up alongside a sword.

He folded the letter so just the sketch was showing and propped it on the side of his writing desk. The envelope from Winter was still sitting untouched in his letter rack, and he ran his fingers along the length of it before seizing his bravery with both hands and pulling it onto the desk in front of him.

The seal was dry and broke into pieces under his talon, evidence of its long wait before reaching his hands. The paper unfolded to show four dark brown primary flight feathers. They were long, the colour changing delicately from quill to tip, pristine.

Remy pressed his hands flat against the desk to avoid crushing them to his chest.

They would be from the right wing, powerful flight feathers. Remy had a vivid memory of the way Volo had tried to protect him with the left, opening up his own flank in an attempt to protect Remy's already injured shield arm. The attack had been too powerful, shredding through the wing and filling the air with the smell of burning feathers, Remy's and Volo's together as they started to fall.

Remy forced a deep breath into his lungs, pushing back from the desk to cross to the window, searching for air that didn't smell of phantom smoke.

He should get the feathers mounted, he considered, his back to them as he sucked in the questionably fresh smell of city streets. In a frame or something. Something nice. He'd eventually be able to walk past them without feeling his skin scorch if he had enough exposure to them.

Strange how you could know that a dear friend was gone for many years, but when faced with reminders of them it could hurt like a new wound.

He carefully returned to the desk and closed the makeshift envelope around the feathers. He needed to write a letter to Winter first, and then he'd find someone to do the work for him. There were crafters in the high district that worked with artists to frame their work, Aria would have contacts. He'd visit in the evening, when the children were around and she was too busy to ask the questions that would hurt anew.

~

Despite all fears, the day of the Everbright trip dawned with nothing so much as a sniffle, and the resurgence of smoke-filled nightmares had been briefer than he'd expected so he had no hesitation replying to Panic's evening sending with confirmation he would be travelling with them.

It was a childish show of pseudo independence, but he left Aria at the gate to the low district, adjusting the straps on the pack that he hadn't had reason to carry for years and now sat awkwardly on his shoulders. He knew this route with his eyes closed, or so he had convinced himself and Aria that morning, and it was mostly true, only getting slightly turned around as he passed through the forges that had spread a fair way further than the last time he'd been in the crafting district alone.

The Sweet Dragon was signposted now, which helped him find the final turning that he would otherwise have certainly passed, but he was calling it a success as he approached the familiar door. There was shouting going on from the training hall around the side of the building, and a tiefling guard he didn't recognise standing guard.

He looked over Remy as he approached, and Remy straightened automatically.

"You must be Remy," the guard said, his tone amiable. "You're to go around the side, if you don't mind. They're running late."

"Of course they are," Remy said with a smirk. "Thank you."

There was a gate to the side of the building, and he was familiar enough with the layout that he made it around with no trouble.

A rough circle of people had formed around the centre of the space and inside Task and someone Remy didn't recognise were circling one another, unarmed and unarmoured. Greckles stepped around the back of the crowd to join him. He was carrying a pack with a bedroll tied to the bottom and slid it off his shoulder to prop against the wall as he came to a stop.

"I swear, we were ready to leave, on time and everything…" he said with a chuckle.

Remy watched the two combatants circle one another. The other person was taller than Task, but Remy knew that wouldn't have any bearing on the fight.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Task needed to prove a point about size," Greckles sighed. "Saphra has been winding him up for a while, but she said something to Ors… Umm…" Greckles tilted his head, looking between Remy and the fight. "How much of what's going on over there can you see?"

"I can tell it's Task, his colour and shape are distinctive. Not much else."

"Saphra's high elven," Greckles said blandly.

Remy shot him a sharp look. "What is she doing training with…" He gestured around the circle, including himself and the large number of minority races in the crowd.

"Yeah, that's kind of what we said when she applied, but… Well, I had some ideas about how the high elves were, and I thought it was mostly stereotypes, right? Prissy, spoiled, better-than-any-other…"

"Sure."

"They might actually be worse than anything I imagined. Or at least, Saphra's enclave. She was born with a cleft lip, and they made her feel… very much a burden. Like they were keeping her around out of charity, instead of caring for their own child. As soon as she was old enough, she left them and came to Alivast, and she found… well, us. The guild of outcasts. But she's still getting used to being amongst so many races, and she's working on unlearning some of the… opinions she grew up with."

There was a terrific crash, and Remy could make out Task on all fours looming over the taller fighter who was now prone.

"Ors is a gnome," Greckles continued. "Honestly the smallest fully grown person I have ever met. She works the kitchen and sometimes helps out in the inn when they're shorthanded, but really she wants to join the guild. Thing is, while she's an excellent spellcaster, she's not made for combat. She keeps trying out, and I know Task sometimes trains with her, but we don't let anyone in the guild as an adventurer without passing the basics – Task would never forgive himself if she got killed under his watch. That doesn't mean that Saphra can say whatever she likes and not expect repercussions."

Task and the other fighter – Saphra - got up and dusted themselves off as they exchanged quiet words that Remy couldn't make out. The circle started to disperse from around them in high spirits. Task was handed back his armour by Panic, and soon it was just the four of them left in the courtyard as Task redressed.

"Sorry," Task said as he crossed to join them. "I didn't want to leave that hanging. I think Ors might have taken it into her own hands, and I know she has shatter stocked. The Inn can't handle that kind of damage."

"Understandable," Remy said, smiling at the three of them as they circled up, Panic handing off Task's rucksack as soon as he was fully armoured.

Panic, now close enough for Remy to make out clearly, looked tired and worn but appeared to be sober. He caught Remy looking and smirked, raising one eyebrow. "Although by now I'd think the inn has seen every type of damage it's possible to inflict. You'd think Adric would have started to reinforce everything by now, the number of times it's been rebuilt."

There was a certain type of friendship group where it was possible to go years without seeing each other and still there was nothing but freeflowing conversation as if they'd never been apart. They'd had an uncomfortable reunion, but it seemed it was behind them as the conversation rolled on. They headed out of the city, passing through the outer walls, and then the new outer walls as the city sprawled ever outwards. They were just about to cross out of the city proper and into the farmland and fields that surrounded, still discussing whether the inn could ever have taken psychic damage, when Task came to a stop.

The others walked a little further before realising, and together they turned back to look.

"I know you're there," Task growled. "It was cute, but I'm getting tired of it."

Remy looked at the others rather than trying to pin down whoever it was that Task was talking to, but they both looked equally bemused.

"Out, now," Task continued.

There was a snuffling noise, and Greckles obviously honed in on something, because he snorted in laughter.

Task stepped forwards. "Look, I know we've been home a lot recently, and you've got used to having me there, but it's going to be a couple of days, a week max." There was a whine, and Remy thought he'd finally worked out who their shadow was. A blue shape was filling one of the alleyways, and Remy was suddenly sharply impressed by the fact that they hadn't noticed Tarusk following them in his large wyrmling form.

"He's wearing a backpack," Greckles breathed, and Task growled at him as he laughed.

"Tarusk, you get to stay with Winter, she's hardly ever here and I'm here all the time. Surely you want to…" Task was cut off as Tarusk marched past him to stand with the others, horned nose pointed towards the gate with clear intention. Task huffed. "Panic, can I… I need to tell Winter not to send out search parties."

Panic already had the Sending orb out, offered towards him.

"Winter, Tarusk's coming with us," he told the orb shortly. "We'll be back soon."

~

It was strange to realise how long it had been since they'd all travelled together, as they set an ambling pace on the road towards the mountains. There were hundreds of stories to share, and Panic always managed to tell the tales in ways that didn't make Remy sting with the feeling of missing out on the adventures. There were creatures mythological and benign that they had faced, and each story one-upped the last, until the light started to seep out of the sky.

They stepped off the road, and a little way into the brushy forest that surrounded, finding a small clearing with a stream not far off where they could fill their water and enough stones to create a little fire pit.

Greckles and Remy were left with Tarusk and a fire to build as Panic went for water and Task headed into the woods to see if he could find any meat to add to dinner.

Remy pulled his bedroll from his pack as Greckles' magic had a cheery fire burning almost immediately, smiling at Greckles' narrowed eyes as the bulky material was laid out.

"There's no way that's a normal pack," he said.

"I don't know what would lead you to that conclusion," Remy said, sticking his arm into the pack up to the shoulder, clearly far beyond the bag's external dimensions. He pulled stock cubes and some wrapped vegetables out, laying them alongside the fire to wait for the water.

"Ugh, you cheat. It's not been even a year without any travel and my bag feels like it weighs as much as Tarusk."

Tarusk stuck his tongue out, which Greckles returned.

"Well, I have something in here for you," Remy said, reaching in and feeling the wooden handle come to his hand. He was grinning as he pulled the stick out of the bag – comically long as the bag of holding distorted the space. "Retirement gift."

Greckles was clearly trying hide some kind of grimace or frown as Remy offered him the handle of the walking stick, and Remy hid his smile as he flicked his wrist just enough that the handle slid out an inch, showing off the blade inside.

"Oooh," Greckles grinned, moving his head to look around the cane before reaching for the handle of the blade. 

"When my family first came to Alivast, we had a neighbour – an older human man, white hair and bow legs. He used to wear this ridiculous hat, and carry a cane not dissimilar to that, and I used to think he was the pinnacle of high society. Once we tried to pickpocket from him, and discovered the secret of that cane, and I have been jealous of it ever since."

"You… tried to pick pocket."

"The perils of a misspent youth. I didn't always wear full plate armour, you know, I have been known to sneak."

"It's funny, it's hard to picture you as a fledgling, scrawny and unarmoured and still shedding patches of down. It's harder to think of you sneaking around picking pockets."

Remy grinned. "I would claim to be mislead by the company I kept, but I'm not sure it would be true. I was never any good, though."

"Maybe I'll teach you, now you're back out of full plate."

"What are we teaching?" Panic wandered back into the camp with the little cauldron of water, propping it on the stones Greckles had set up until it was in the fire but not suffocating it.

"Remy to pickpocket."

"Scarlet was telling me that picking pockets was a bit small time for you," he said. "I was scandalised."

Greckles turned bright eyes Remy's way. "This sounds like a story."

"My sister was telling tales, and I refuse to repeat them," Remy grumbled, leaning back on his bedroll as Panic moved to help Tarusk out of the straps of his backpack. It looked awkward, and goodness knows how the wyrmling managed to get it on in the first place.

"What do you even have in here?" Panic asked as he finally got him untangled from the straps.

"Tools," he answered with a grin.

"Tools?" Greckles and Remy asked in concert, sharing a bemused grin.

"Tools!"

Task wandered back into the camp with a couple of hares, looking pleased with himself.

"What kind of tools?" he asked as he sat down to skin the animals.

"My tools."

Task snorted a laugh. "Well excellent, that clears things right up."

"May we take a look?" Remy asked.

"Look, don't take." Tarusk gave them all a narrow-eyed glare.

"Of course," Remy agreed.

"Okay, what do we have in here. A ball?" Panic pulled the leather ball out of the top of the rucksack, presenting it to Tarusk for comment.

"For catch."

"Sure." Greckles nodded, and laughed as Panic hurled the ball at him, hitting him square in the chest as he tried to bat it away.

"Two pieces of flapjack," Panic pulled out next.

"Rations!"

"Well… okay." Task looked up, throwing the meat into the pot and cleaning his hands off in the remaining water. "Close enough. Sweets make excellent emergency rations, for if you're very lost and cold, but you know this isn't really good enough for a trip, right?"

Tarusk made a grumbling noise, and Remy had no doubt he would live off cupcakes and flapjack if he was allowed.

Panic handed the rest of the pack off to Task and moved to pick up his guitar.

"Blanket, excellent." Tarusk took the edge of the blanket that Task had half-pulled from the bag and pulled it the rest of the way out to lay it out next to the fire. "Polymorph pendent," Task continued, moving the tail of the blanket out of the way.

"Littler Tarusk," Tarusk continued explaining. "For sneaking."

"Good, excellent thinking. Hmm… what's this?" Task pulled out a sheathed dagger and looked it over. "Is this…"

Greckles looked over from stirring the pot and did a double take. "That's the scary acid dagger of stab. Tarusk, why do you have that? It was in my room."

"For stabbing. For little Tarusk."

"We'll talk about you taking stuff from me later. If you wanted a dagger, you just had to ask. That one is… dangerous."

"Dagger is for stab," Tarusk repeated, as if Greckles was being very dense. Remy hid his face to disguise his laughter as a cough.

"Okay, sure. I can't argue with that I guess."

"I… Tarusk, how did you get this?" Task pulled Gripples out of the bag, considering it with wide eyes.

"Tool!" he said, bouncing a little from foot to foot.

"This isn't a tool, Tarusk, it's an explosive device. You shouldn't have it anywhere near you. It's dangerous, you understand? Far more dangerous than the SADS."

"Tarusk has listened to stories," he said, nodding enthusiastically and clearly missing Task's disapproval.

"I have no doubt. Panic's very good at telling stories, and he doesn't always consider his audience." Task's tone was sharply pointed.

"And Gripples said I should keep myself safe," Tarusk added.

There was a long moment of bewildered silence.

"Tarusk," Panic said, in a forcefully calm voice. "Did Gripples talk to you?"

"Yes."

"Gripples?" Task emphasised, gesturing with the statue.

"Borky always mentioned talking to Gripples, correct?" Remy asked, not sure why they were all so confused.

"I'm not entirely sure any of us believed he actually… spoke," Greckles said quietly, his eyes a little wider than usual. "Mostly he just encouraged Borky to… well, blow things up. I think we kind of assumed it was Borky's inner voice, and he was just projecting it onto Gripples."

"Well… this conversation has been terrifying, and we need to talk about your light fingers." Task stared at the statue as Tarusk looked down at his front paws, clearly bemused. "I'm going to… put this in my pack." Task looked up as Tarusk growled deeply. "I know you said don't take, but this isn't yours, Tarusk, and you shouldn't have it. If you hear it speak again… let me know."

Task tucked Gripples tentatively into his own pack, as if expecting it to explode at any moment, and then helped Tarusk reload his rucksack, smiling as he put the Scary Acid Dagger of Stab back in.

~

It was with warm stew in their bellies and the evening starting to draw in that they sat around the bright fire and brought their bed rolls in close.

"I'll take first watch," Panic said, "Task second, Greckles dawn watch."

"Tarusk and I will take third watch together," Remy added, knowing immediately that they hadn't planned to have him take a watch.

There was a moment of stilted silence, as they all tried to think of some polite reason to decline Adding Tarusk had been a calculated move, and Remy thought it might still play out in his favour.

Greckles shook his head first. "It's one night, and we're barely out of earshot of Alivast. We don't need a watch."

"But you were planning a watch," Remy pointed out blandly.

Panic grimaced. "Habit."

"Tarusk needs to learn how to take a watch," Remy pointed out. "We can look out for one another, and as you said, we're very close to Alivast. Where safer?"

"It would be beneficial," Task said, and Tarusk shot him a betrayed look. "Hey, you decided to join us. You could have stayed at home with your nice warm bed."

"Then we're agreed, Tarusk and I will wake Greckles for the dawn watch."

~

Task woke Remy in the darkness, the subsiding fire giving off a warm glow that didn't light more than a few feet in any direction. He was stiff and aching, unused to a bedroll on the hard ground after so long, but he got himself up while Task went to rouse Tarusk.

The young dragon woke with a grumble, and tried to roll straight back over, but Task eventually convinced him up to his feet with some quiet words.

Job done, Task turned back to Remy, his voice pitched quiet and low: "The water in the pot's just boiled, hot enough for tea. Nothing but the local wildlife moving about."

"Thank you. Sleep well."

He nodded, and then headed back to his own bedroll. Remy pulled a lantern out of his pack and shuffled a little more dry wood onto the fire before standing up to stretch. Tarusk was doing long slow tired blinks, his head lolling, and Remy gestured for him to come join him a couple of paces away from the camp.

They stretched, Tarusk finding alternatives for the stretches that didn't easily suit his quadruped form, and then had tea. Remy grabbed his blanket and found a space to sit with his lantern, his back to the fire and Tarusk sitting at attention beside him.

Tarusk became distracted and twitchy before more than half an hour had gone by, and Remy cleared his throat. In many ways, he'd done very well already. He couldn't imagine his young grand niece and nephews sitting so still for so long in the dark. But then perhaps it was more interesting when the dark wasn't a barrier to sight.

"I spy, with my little eye…" Remy started quietly, pleased when Tarusk looked over at him with a bright eyed grin, and then even more intently out into the forest. Eventually he would notice that Remy wasn't naming anything further than the nearest tree, but if it kept him attentive for a little while, it would be enough.

He'd maybe risk a quick stroll of the area when the light started to come up, and he was less likely to walk into a tree, and by then it would be Greckles' watch, and Tarusk could catch the last of his sleep.

~

They'd cycled through all of the traveling games Remy could think of, and he could see Tarusk starting to yawn more and more often, so he stood and stretched out the kinks from sitting still on the ground for so long.

"Come on," he said, nudging Tarusk's side. "Let's do a perimeter check."

Tarusk tilted his head curiously in his direction. "Perimeter?" he asked.

"We'll walk around the edge of the camp, make sure there's nothing moving around. Nothing sneaking up on us or watching us."

"Can you see?" Tarusk asked, a little sceptically.

Remy cleared his throat and gestured to the beam of light that the lantern was giving off. "I have a lantern, and you can see very well in the dark, I know."

Tarusk harumphed. "Dad is better."

"There are many things that Task is excellent at. Seeing in the dark is definitely one of them."

Remy hoisted the lantern in stiff talons, making sure he had enough oil to keep it lit for their little jaunt. He was fairly sure there wasn't going to be anything other than wildlife in the area, but even with the sun just starting to colour the horizon through the trees, it was dark enough to need it.

It would be Greckles' watch soon, to give him time for his prayer to the dawn, but for now he was tired enough that if he sat and did nothing, he and Tarusk would surely be caught napping when it came to the change of watch.

They set out directly away from the camp, returning to the road first to look up and down it. Then back to the camp before starting a wide circle around it. There was a little bit of scuffling and shuffling in the undergrowth as Remy's lantern light disrupted the small things, and he watched as Tarusk's ears twitched towards each one.

"See anything suspicious?" he asked, as they paused. "Or smell anything?"

"Not got a good nose. Made for goring, not for smelling." Tarusk went briefly crosseyed in an attempt to study his horned nose.

Remy suppressed a grin. "My mistake."

"Nothing, anyway. Badger, under the ground now. Hear him shuffling."

"I don't think I've ever seen a badger," Remy considered.

"Ange had one, broken paw. Angry and made of claws."

"Ah, then perhaps good that I've never come across one."

"Soft, though. When he was sleeping."

They circled back around and found Greckles already starting to rise, a habit of decades giving him an internal alarm clock. He smiled at them both, and Tarusk took this as permission to dive directly into his oversized blanket and tangle himself up in its folds.

The sunrise was beautiful through the trees as Greckles took up position, and Remy took a moment to appreciate it before finding his own way to bed.

~

Everbright was growing in size as it became something of a satellite town to Alivast, certainly much bigger now than it had been when Alivast had been new. Still, it was small in comparison, more of a gentle fade from farmland into the stone and masonry of the inner city than Alivast's wall-defined layers.

The greenery was rampant and wild, every spare space that wasn't house or road filled with a small garden, a well trampled green or cluster of fruit trees just starting to blossom. It seemed like everything was open and shared in a way Alivast wasn't – the gardens full of carefully maintained vegetables, and fruit trees that would clearly bear fruit available to everyone. Where Alivast had cobbles, Everbright had rutted mud roads, with scatterings of pebbles and building material filling in the worst of the holes.

They passed through the town, taking their time and enjoying the stalls and scenes of a smaller urbanisation. Somehow it felt less busy here, though the people weren't working any less hard and life wasn't travelling any more slowly. There was less of a guard presence, less walls and less defences.

Tarusk was the centre of quite a lot of attention, and it was clear he wasn't sure how to interpret it. While it had been a long time since the Alivastian region had been plagued by chromatic dragons, fear memory lasted longer than most other things. Despite his sweet smile and the adventurers that formed up around him, there was little that would disguise what Tarusk was. Eventually he and Task stepped to one side of the flow of people and they retrieved his polymorph pendant from his pack. They returned to the group as a kobold and his young kobold son as Task let Tarusk scramble onto his shoulders.

Panic lifted what was now an oversized pack and tightened the straps so it had some chance of staying on Tarusk's thin shoulders as he kicked at Task's flanks and urged his new mount forwards.

Whether through tiredness, deference to the bustling street or just anticipation of their arrival at Lily's, conversation had dropped to a minimum between them as they passed through the town and back into the outskirts. Remy had noticed Greckles' limp become more pronounced over the last hour or so, and as a child dashing out of a gate nearly took Greckles' out at the knees, he saw the flinch of pain.

He was close enough that he managed to turn his momentum into a shove from the other side – ostensibly knocking into Greckles, but giving him opportunity and excuse to grab onto someone as he snatched his foot off the ground with a hiss.

"Greckles, I'm so sorry," Remy blustered, keeping a hand on Greckles as he half-stepped back.

"It's fine," he returned tightly, keeping his weight on that hand.

"Everything alright?" Task asked, peering around Tarusk's leg.

"Fine," Greckles repeated, pointedly putting both feet on the floor.

Remy let go as Greckles stepped away. "We're not far, now, correct?"

Greckles set off again with as pointed a stride as any Remy had seen, his shoulders tense.

"Probably another couple of hours. Lily lives out in the foothills," Panic answered him. "But we've been going a while, we could rest on the edge of town… if you needed to?"

Remy looked over at him and saw the pointed look. Apparently he wasn't the only one who'd noticed Greckles' discomfort.

"I wouldn't like to slow us down," Remy said, knowing the ruse would be blown if he agreed straight away. "I'm just not used to… But I can keep going?"

Greckles shot him a sharp look immediately, and Remy tried to look as exhausted and pitiful as possible. Whether he worked out the deception or not, Greckles nodded. "I could do with a couple of minutes. Task, do you mind?"

He gave an easy shrug, turning to walk backwards for a few steps so he could see past Tarusk. "Hey, we're not in any rush."

They walked a little longer, until scattered houses turned into farmsteads and orchards, and chose a spot by the side of the road where they wouldn't be trampled by horses or vehicles. Tarusk scrambled off Task, and then wriggled out of his rucksack before turning to paw through the contents. He came out with the flapjack, and with much ceremony broke it into crumbling honeyed pieces before running between them all to present everyone with a portion.

"Rations!" he declared to each of them as he shared the sticky treat, and Remy took his piece with as much gravitas as he could muster.

"Easier with hands, right?" Task said as he took some, obviously revisiting some discussion long hashed out as Tarusk huffed at him.

"But so little," he said, demolishing the morsel and then setting to licking the honey from his fingers. "Little hands, little legs. Never get anywhere."

"Hey," Task retorted with a mouth full of food. "I get everywhere just fine."

"But one day, wings!" Tarusk said, and then did a little stamping dance, with jumps like he was trying to take off in his kobold form.

Remy glanced over at Panic and Greckles to share his joy in the adorable antics and found them talking quietly, not paying any attention to Tarusk's display. As Panic picked a short tune on his guitar and then laid a healing hand on Greckles' side, Remy forced his attention back to Tarusk as he continued the sparsely worded debate on the merits of dragon vs kobold physiology.

They set off again an hour later with Tarusk returned to his full size and Greckles with the cane in his hand, poking the ground with it tentatively like he wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. Remy resisted the urge to comment and kept his attention forwards.

~

When they finally approached Lily's little sanctuary, the countryside around had opened into wide and open fields, and Remy remembered the shadow of the immense mountains beyond. A long track led through an orchard on one side and a series of fields on the other.

As they stepped through the gate there was distant barking, and then small stampede of animals. There were dogs, goats, sheep, tiny ponies and what appeared to be a giant rat in the rabble of animals, and following behind them a good distance was a very grizzled and large dog who was limping and wheezing like an old man.

Task dodged behind Panic as they were swarmed with enthusiastic greetings of every kind. Greckles was too busy laughing to help as he was knocked on his butt by an overly affectionate dog tackle, to yells of promised violence.

Tarusk, faced with all the other quadrupeds, scrambled back a few steps. The first few bravest dogs approached, dropping head and shoulders close to the ground in an invitation to play. He shot the others a wide-eyed glance, and then returned the gesture, starting an intense game of tag that almost incited an animal whirlwind until they all dogpiled on top of one another.

The older dog, finally catching up with the group, used the break in activity to lick Remy from hand to neck, leaving him ruffled and covered in drool.

Eventually they all calmed down and dispersed slightly, some of the animals trundling back down the track and some sticking with them as they retrieved a very annoyed Task from the ground and started moving forwards again.

The first buildings they passed were stables and barns, full of animal noise but not signs of Lily, so they followed the road further, shedding creatures in every different directions as they returned to where they had come from.

As they turned the corner, they came into sight of a picturesque cottage, ivy covered and surrounded by a fenced garden full of plants and flowers. The rest of their entourage scattered, with the exception of the one elderly dog who was walking alongside Remy, accepting scritches. There was a squeal from inside as they opened the creaky gate, shuffling away some opportunistic goats before they headed into the garden.

The door flew open, and Lily leapt out and into an immediate hug with a startled Panic who was first on the path, and then shuffled around him to give them all the same treatment.

"You're here!" she said, brightly. "You're here! Oh Tarusk, you're so big now!"

Hugging Remy last, she then started physically pushing them all towards the door. "Come on, get inside, I have food for you, and drink. Oh, it's terribly far to Alivast, and all the babies are coming, the kittens and the lambs and the foals… thank you so much for coming."

The inside of the cottage was warm in contrast to the spring afternoon turning to evening outside. There was a bright fire going in the hearth with a pot hanging over it that smelled like something warm and delicious, and every bit of furniture was covered with layers of handmade blankets and hand stitched cushions.

Near by the fire there was a tiny bundle of blankets next to a saucer of milk, which the old dog went to investigate immediately.

"Arturous, no!" Lily said firmly, and the dog froze in place, nose pointing and one paw raised.

"Sorry, should we have kept him outside?" Remy asked.

"No, he's fine, he sleeps in here normally and I hate to leave him outside when he's so old, but…" Lily crossed the room, petting the dog who was of a height with her, and then picking up the bundle, pushing a few folds of fabric aside to show a tiny kitten.

Its eyes were still closed, and it wrinkled its nose at the newly exposed room before mewing a tiny noise.

"The others are in the back room with their mother, but this one wasn't eating, and I thought maybe, with a little bit of warmth and attention I could save her." Lily smiled down at the tiny thing. "I know sometimes they won't all make it, and it's stupid of me to try to save every runt, but every year I think, if I can just save *this* one…"

"Lily, you're a saint." Greckles slumped into one of the seats, dropping his bag beside it.

"No, just a druid. No Gods here but Ydia, and she won't intervene on this little one's behalf."

"It's so small," Panic mused, delight in his voice.

"Want to hold her while I finish our dinner? If you can persuade her to take some milk, all the better."

"Panic's the best at getting babies to take milk," Task snorted.

"How do you even remember that?"

Task cackled at Panic's tone of disbelief. "Are you kidding? I am never going to forget that image, even when I'm old and senile and I don't remember my kids' names."

"Kids, huh?" Greckles kicked at Task's ankle. "You told Winter about these hypothetical 'kids'?"

"I like my life, Greckles."

Remy reached out for the bundle of blankets as they heckled each other, taking it from Lily with a smile and feeling the insignificant weight transferred into his care. He took a seat in one of the blanket-covered chairs and considered the tiny thing.

He'd been terrified of holding Mia's children when he'd first met them – they were too small, too delicate, a wrong move would crush them or impale them on a talon. Still, when it became apparent that their youngest wouldn't make it, it was him and Aria and Lucio who took on the care of the three to give the grieving parents time with their dying chick.

Lily passed him the bowl of milk and the little rubber dropper, the kind Remy had seen his sister use to prepare potions, and he listened as the others moved on to discussing whether or not Panic could claim any kind of responsibility for raising Scarlet as he fumbled the tip towards the little mouth.

Tarusk approached cautiously, barely enough room for him in the compact gnome-scaled room as he curled up next to Remy and put a chin on his knee next to the edge of the blanket.

Lily stepped carefully over his tail and poured a bowl of vegetables into the broth and gave it a stir. "Who are you thinking of?" she asked quietly as she settled in the next chair over, smoothing the blanket out so she could watch as the kitten took another careful drop of milk. "You look sad."

"My sister's daughter had a clutch of four, and only three made it. It's always a risk – it's so much better now than it was even in my grandfather's time, but… I think of her sometimes. Sienna."

"A beautiful name. Don't you think, Tarusk?"

Tarusk blinked up at her. "Looks like snack," he observed, blinking in confusion as Lily and Remy both laughed.

"We'll have a real dinner ready for you soon, please don't eat the baby while you wait."

~

They all had empty bowls of stew and cups of cider when the conversation finally came around to the reason for their visit.

"How was the funeral?" Lily asked softly into a lull in the conversation. "Was it busy?"

"It was," Greckles said. "All of Alivast turned out for it. It looked like a Harrowing procession, there were so many people."

"Winter even tried to make it back, but she didn't get in until the early hours of the morning."

Lily shot Task a sharp look at that. "Winter's in Alivast?"

"Yes, she got a week's leave to come back for the funeral, but they got held up on the way back and…" Task stopped talking as Lily held up a hand.

"Winter's in Alivast, she took leave so that she could be there to support you… And you came here, to see me?"

"Of course, we had plans."

Lily pressed a hand to her face. "You, sir, are an idiot. And I love you all the same." She pulled Task into a hug again before returning to her seat. "Panic, how did the performance go?"

"It was beautiful," Remy interrupted before Panic could say anything. "It felt like he was there with us."

Lily's jaw was tight, and she nodded. "Well done." She sniffed, nudging at Panic's side. "Come on, tell me everything. It's like blood from a stone."

With a shaky smile, Panic started to describe the scenes he'd chosen to display for the funeral. Most of the stories Remy already knew, but there were some he'd not realised the significance of, and some he'd forgotten in the intervening years. As the evening rolled on there were more stories shared, and a couple of pauses for tears and for laughter.

"I hadn't realised Gruul was in Alivast," Lily said as the conversation came around to their old friend.

Task frowned at her. "How do you know Gruul?"

"Oh, I sent over a billy for his clan's goats a while back. I think perhaps Borky mentioned me to them when they started their breeding program? Audrey wrote me this lovely letter about how they were doing, and we've kept in touch ever since."

"Did you ever meet?"

"No, I don't think so. I didn't realise that Audrey wasn't an orc until we'd traded a couple of letters back and forth. Gruul is the clan leader, right?"

The Unexpectables looked at one another for a beat, perhaps considering how to describe Gruul's unique position. Remy cleared his throat. "Gruul has demon heritage, and it means he'll likely outlive most of his clan. So he takes long sabbaticals to spend time with other orc clans, to learn, exchange culture and trade clan members. He takes some of the hard cases with him, to get some worldly experience, and leaves other orcs in charge while he's away to get a chance at leadership."

"He and Audrey helped Borky set up the Alivastian Orc clan," Greckles added. "So they visit periodically. They came back to Alivast at the start of this year, ostensibly for a visit."

"But really to say goodbye," Lily finished, pressing her hand to her heart.

They nodded in combined agreement.

"How loved he was, that everywhere he went he found people who wanted to spend more time with him, to learn from him or give to him."

"The clan still grows in Alivast." Panic said, only a little choked. "It's big now, and they're thriving, developing their own culture. Borky wouldn't let them just be swallowed up into Alivast at the price of their history. They've got some people working to transcribe their oral histories, so that they can be kept when clans disperse or are wiped out. Between Borky and Enceladus they managed to uncover some evidence of a super-clan that might have been the ancestor to all of the Alivast region clans."

"Enceladus must be heartbroken, they were working together so closely."

"He's taking a sabbatical, I think he'll visit the other clans, let them know that Borky has passed and spend some time… adjusting."

"Young elves," Lily sighed. "It's such a hard time when everyone seems as immortal in youth as you are. It's hard to accept how things will change around you. And he's chosen a topic of study that's going to hurt him a lot that way."

There was a moment of quiet as they all acknowledged their respective mortality, and then Panic had a funny anecdote of a misunderstanding between Borky and Enceladus, and the night rolled towards lighter things.

~

Rousing himself from a doze in the warmth of the fire, Remy looked over to find Task and Panic slumped on one another, Panic with one hand securing the bundle of blankets containing the tiny kitten. Arturous was sprawled out with Tarusk in front of the fire, the two of them snoring in sync. He had to look a little further to see Greckles and Lily, with Greckles sat on the kitchen table and Lily on a chair with his foot propped in her lap. Greckles' shoulders were tight with pain as the druid manipulated the unbound toes.

"You know my opinion on this, Greckles, it hasn't changed." Her voice was low, and Remy wasn't sure if it was out of deference to their sleeping companions or to keep her words private.

"I have thought about it, but I'm going to put it off a while longer. It doesn't feel like it's getting any worse, and… well I'm holding on to that right now."

"It's your body, and your tolerance for pain," she shrugged, her lips forming a grimace. "You know if you need to you can go to the clerics for a short term fix."

"I tried that for a while, but if it doesn't hurt I forget to hold back, and I hurt myself worse. Magical intervention has been useful the few times I've really needed to sneak, or move fast, but I don't want to be in a position where I need healing every day just to walk. There's a good chance that's coming, but for right now…"

She moved her knees and let Greckles' foot hang next to the other. "The second toe's shifted across some more, I'll take another cast and make an new splint, that should help."

"Is there any chance… any chance at all that you can make it *quieter* this time?"

"I saw the little rubber feet you put on it," Lily picked up the support that Greckles usually wore and turned it over to see the modification. "Ingenious. I'll see what I can do. But I thought you were retiring?"

"Old habits die hard? And I feel like everyone is… Looking. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to be so loud, even when I'm in a safe place."

"What's that phrase about pride?"

Greckles blinked. "Killed the… cat? I don't know."

Lily chuckled. "I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, where did you get the flashy cane I saw you come in with."

"Oh… Remy got it for me. Retirement gift."

"And you're going to use it, right?" Lily pressed.

"I… uh… Hmm…"

"Let me rephrase – your druid, who you come to for advice instead of any of the many, many highly skilled clerics in your life, is telling you to use the damn cane."

Greckles grimaced. "I'll try it out."

"Well, that's a start I guess. See if you can get the others up so we can get you into proper beds? Task is taking the sofa, and I have a couple of spare beds. Panic said you'd probably want to share with Remy?"

Remy bit his own tongue as Greckles made a startled noise.

"Oh!" Lily squeaked. "That tiefling is a menace. Right, there's enough beds for you and Remy, Panic can take the floor as punishment for his teasing. I think Artie has claimed Tarusk as his matress for the night, I'll find some blankets for them."

"I don't mind the floor…" Greckles said, only for Lily to interrupt immediately.

"Greckles, one of these days you're going to need to learn to leverage your age to get a nice place to sleep, people at your beck and call, reasons for friends to visit you."

Greckles chuckled, sliding to the floor from the table. "I don't feel that old. I know I'm stopping adventuring, but I'm not… *stopping*. I'm hoping that actually there'll be some new things, between the guild and this teaching job…"

Remy stood from the chair, gathering up the blanket as it tried to slide to the floor. He felt a little creaky but mobile at least. Lily and Greckles went quiet for a moment.

"Hey Remy," Greckles said, and his smile was warm even if his shoulders were still tight with pain.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb your conversation." As carefully as possible to avoid waking Panic, Remy shifted the blanket in his lap to uncover the kitten and watched long enough to see its sides rise and fall in even breaths.

"You didn't, it's fine. I was just telling Lily about all my big post-adventuring plans in Alivast."

"What do you do these days, Remy?"

Remy bit down on the discomfort. "Very little. I help watch my niece's children, and sometimes help in my brother's shop, but I have the good fortune to not need to work and I have fully taken that opportunity."

"Did you ever reach out to Balfor?" Greckles asked, gathering up some crockery from the table.

"I did, as a matter of fact. I sent him a letter on the same day I received yours. We'll see how he responds. I don't know how much he can accommodate."

Greckles shot him a look. "You say that like you're a house bound invalid. You walked here, you kept watch last night. It's not as if the army is unfamiliar with the kinds of things you're working through."

Remy shrugged. "We'll see."

Task stepped up alongside him with his empty mug. "If he tells you no, send him to us and we'll set him straight." And he walked through to the kitchen to wash up.

"How old are the grandchildren?" Lily pressed. "Sometimes I spend so much time around lambs and bears I forget that eggs are being hatched elsewhere."

"Three of them, all five years old. They are made of energy, curiosity and dirt."

"The best three things," Lily chuckled. "Come on then, let's find some blankets and set up with somewhere to sleep before the kitten needs another feeding. If we can do it without waking Panic, he won't be disappointed to be the one taking the floor!"

~

The spare room contained two large beds squeezed in at right angles to one another, and a tall wardrobe that held blankets and bedding. Task was handed two blankets and Lily left with a third as Remy and Greckles placed their bags down.

Greckles chuckled to himself, considering the beds.

"What?" Remy asked, unbuckling his gambeson, and shivering in the cooler room. It was all well and good dozing in front of the fire, but it left him cold.

"Panic will never pass up the chance to be an asshole." He shook his head. "It's nothing."

He looked over at Remy, and then frowned and hissed as Remy finally forced himself to take off the gambeson and the shirt beneath, planning a quick dive beneath the covers. Remy froze at the noise, feeling his gut churn a little. They'd both been more than tipsy the other night, perhaps thinking of other things. Had Greckles really not seen the state of him?

He fought the urge to cover up again, glancing back at Greckles, only to find him looking at his shoulder rather than his side where the scarring was worst.

"Is that from your pack?" he asked.

Remy made an attempt to look at his own shoulder, mostly unsuccessfully. "What?"

"You've got a mark, raw looking, where your pack strap sits."

Remy investigated with his fingertips, quickly realising the issue. "I… ah, I don't have sensation there. The strap must have been rubbing and I didn't notice."

"You don't feel it?"

"Not at all. I'll cover it, it'll heal before we need to head back." Remy would be happy to dismiss the minor injury, something that didn't even cause him pain, but he could see Greckles' frown deepen. "It's fine."

"Sorry," Greckles shook his head, looking away and preparing to get ready for bed.

"Are you alright?" Remy pressed, still not sure where Greckles' deeper melancholy had come from.

"Fine," Greckles said dismissively, and then climbed into the bed, turning his back and seeming to fall asleep immediately.

Bemused and confused, it took Remy a while to fall asleep himself.

~

When Remy woke the following morning, he was stiff in a way that hurt him down to his bones. He considered himself lucky that Greckles rose with the dawn when merely sitting up in the bed had him hissing in pain. He sat for a moment, collecting himself and considering his condition. It had been… more than a few years since he'd really left the city, and while he walked its city streets on a daily basis that was a far reach from two days walking with a pack, and a night sleeping on the ground.

He eased himself up onto his feet, reminding himself how lucky he was that it was his hands that suffered worse after listening in on Greckles' conversation with Lily the night before, but still feeling every joint as they objected to taking his weight.

There were levels to his morning exercises, and usually he could jump straight in with just enough to get him up and moving and let the rest of his body catch up as the day progressed, but today was likely to be just as active and demanding as the day before, and possibly the rest of the week would be the same.

He knew if he asked, they would leave him alone to rest for a day, recover his energy and his strength, but he didn't *want* to do that. If he needed to, he could spend half the day with them, and then retreat inside to rest and perhaps offer to handle dinner to give him some sort of excuse.

A tiny voice that sounded annoyingly like his sister was reminding him exactly where overdoing it usually landed him, but he was going to ignore that voice for as long as possible.

Happy that he was still standing and the initial pain was starting to settle, Remy started his morning stretching at the lowest possible standard. Being able to move around, lift his shoulders and use his hands were minimum requirements for today, so he had some work to do.

~

Remy left the spare room feeling like he was still moving awkwardly. His arms were still stiff, but he could hide that so long as no one asked him to lift anything heavy, and his hands were working in the vaguest sense.

Panic was asleep on the sofa with a blanket thrown haphazardly over him, and Task was up at the kitchen table with Greckles and Tarusk, watching a small collection of tiny kittens feed from their mother in a straw and blanket lined crate.

Task had the runt in his lap as it took some milk from the dropper. Its tummy was round, and it was starting to fill in with colour as its fur grew in orange.

"Hey," Greckles greeted. "I wasn't sure how long you'd sleep."

"I'm not so used to that kind of travel anymore. I hadn't realised how out of shape I was."

Remy took a seat in the same chair he'd claimed the night before – half way between the fire and the kitchen so that he could be warm and still part of the conversation. Panic yawned, scrubbing his hair out of his face as he sat up.

"None of us have done much travel like that recently." Greckles admitted. "I'll be glad to leave it behind to be honest."

Panic shot him a look, narrow eyed, and Remy wondered what he was missing as there was a sudden awkward silence. "I was always spoiled for long marches, by Volo," he offered. "They made sure we could march with all our equipment, but we rarely had reason to when we could travel at twice the speed in the air."

"Where's Lily?" Panic asked, crossing into the kitchen and pouring tea out of the pot.

"Out looking after all the animals. She left a note that said she should be back in time for breakfast, but she's not appeared yet."

Even as he said it, Lily came in through the front door, blustery wind chasing her in.

"I'm so sorry," she said hurriedly, "I wanted to spend today with you all, but Mally has gone into labour, and Nox is nowhere to be found and neither of my helpers showed up this morning to feed the…"

"Lily, Lily," Greckles broke into the baffling list of names. "We're here, and we're not skilled druids but we can move feed and fill water troughs."

Lily gasped. "But you're *guests*," she said, full of offense.

"No, we're family, and family chips in, right?" Greckles looked around them all and got back amiable nods.

"F… Family. Yes. Thank you, Greckles!"

~

It didn't take long to get themselves together with warm clothes and a makeshift breakfast of bread and cheese, and they were set to feeding the chickens, the dogs, the horses and the sheep with new lambs who were in pens for observation. For the water troughs, there was a bucket and a little wheelbarrow and directions to the stream that ran across the corner of the fields. And last but not least, Tarusk was given the task of hunting down (and definitely not eating) the very pregnant cat, Nox, who had surely hidden herself away to have her kittens – the second litter for the farm in the week.

They were all well into their tasks when there was a shout of triumph from across the yard, and they all looked to one another before heading towards the little row of stables, one of which held the pregnant cart horse, Mally.

They crowded over the half-door of the stable, looking in to find Lily fussing the cart horse as she nosed at the new arrival, spindly and damp and resting against her mother's side.

"Everyone alright in here?" Panic asked.

"She did wonderfully," Lily replied, getting to her feet from beneath the massive horse's head and leaving her to greet the newborn. "I'll let her rest a little while, and then we'll check them both over, make sure everything is in order."

"Can we… bring you anything?" Task asked.

"Some warm water, please. Oh, and can someone see how the kitten is?"

"I went back in about half an hour ago," Greckles admitted. "But I'll check on her again and give her some milk. Her eyes were starting to open."

"Oh my goodness," Lily squeaked. "That's wonderful. Oh, I do hope she makes it through."

Greckles headed back off towards the house, and Remy watched him go.

"When will you know… that she'll make it?" Panic asked, a little wide eyed.

"Every additional day is a good day," Lily smiled. "Anyway, did Tarusk find Nox?"

They all looked around themselves, seeing nothing but the yard and each other, and Lily rolled her eyes. "Go find them, please."

They dispersed, all calling for Tarusk with a different tone. It was Remy, in the end, that nearly tripped over the tip of a bright blue tail poking out from beneath the decking that overlooked the little schooling ring. The space was surely far too small for even such a young dragon, but Remy knew it was not the only form that Tarusk could take. "Task," he called, as the kobold passed him, his calling starting to turn sharp with annoyance.

"What?"

"Is that…" He pointed.

"Tarusk!" Task shouted sharply, and the tail twitched. Task knelt down beside the displaced boards, and squirmed in. There was very little space, and Remy wouldn't have liked to even try to follow, with the muddy ground beneath and the wooden boards above. Instead he walked onto the structure, trying to look down between the slats.

Greckles passed him carrying a basin, looking confused as he tried to work out what Remy was doing shuffling around on the little stage.

"What's going on?"

"I think Tarusk has found Nox," Remy replied, and then pointed down beneath him.

"Seriously, under there?"

"I think he has the polymorph pendant on, Task followed him in."

"Nox is down here," Task called. "And there are kittens."

"Do you… need anything?" Greckles called. "I have the hot water for Mally."

Task shuffled out so his face was showing from under the deck. "Find out if Lily wants to move them inside? They look fine, six of them. There's some insulation down here, but the nights are still cold."

~

Between Task and Tarusk, they carefully manoeuvred all the kittens and then the tired mother out to Remy and then into another crate on Lily's instructions, they were recovering the last kitten when Panic rushed past them all and back towards the house, a distracted frown on his face. Remy watched him go, his arms too full of kitten to intercept.

"Everything alright?" he asked Greckles, who appeared next, following Panic.

"Not sure yet. The two kids who should have shown up today are still missing – Lily sent an animal messenger to their homes, and she just got a message back - they left on time this morning, no reason for them not to have arrived. There's some bandits in the area, mostly too scared of Lily to make any trouble here, but they might have intercepted a couple of teenagers on their own."

Panic reappeared with the Orb of Sending in one hand, just as Lily came out of the stables. She took it from him immediately. "Thank you. There's a word limit on Sending, right?"

"Twenty five words out, twenty five back," Remy answered automatically, adding the kitten in his hands to the crate.

"Just once a day," Panic added. "So warn them in advance they'll only get twenty five. They'll recognise your voice, don't bother identifying yourself."

She nodded seriously and held up the orb. "Sotto. This is a sending spell. Reply describing where you are and who is around you. You have twenty five words. Hope you are safe."

They all paused around the orb, breath held.

"With Awbert," came the distant voice. "In the forest, to the North. Hour's walk, a camp. Bandits, and Old Rotheby's son. Beat up. Help. … I know, but I…" the orb cut off.

"Who's Rotheby?" Greckles asked as the message ended.

"Bernard Rotheby's the Mayor's butler. His son Rudy has been a troublemaker for a long time. He was raised alongside the Mayor's son, horse riding lessons and sword fighting lessons, but he nearly killed the Mayor's son in a training fight and the Mayor ran him out of town. If he's involved with the bandits there's a chance they are far more organised than they seem, and with worse intensions."

"You think they're planning something more serious than banditry?" Task asked.

"It seems likely. I'm going to send a messenger into town, see if I can't rouse up some guards."

"You want us to start North now?" Task pressed, his eyes narrowed. "It could take hours to get a party together, and it'll still take them an hour to get out this far, and then another hour's travel to get to the camp."

"Not to mention, chances are they're banking on the guard leaving the town, they might be planning to circle round while the guard are occupied. If we can get to them before they know we've been alerted…"

Lily was shaking her head. "I couldn't possibly ask you to…"

"You don't need to," Panic said. "We'll go."

"I… can't come with you. There's the kitten, and lambs and a new foal…"

"We'll be fine," Panic rested a hand on her shoulder. "It's just bandits."

"Don't underestimate them."

"We won't."

Lily wrung her hands together, clearly still unsure. "You're not at your full strength, remember. I need you to remember that, please don't get hurt here. I'd never forgive myself."

~

As they started to pack up their things and Task took a moment to give Tarusk the solemn duty of protecting Lily, the farm and all the animals from attack, Greckles pulled Remy aside.

"You don't have to do this with us," he said bluntly.

"I know," Remy replied. With a gesture, his sword sprang into his hand, and his shield into the other. It was something of a relief that they came so easily, although he hoped Greckles didn't read that relief on his face. He'd not summoned the weapons in a long time, although he'd kept his bond with them as strong as he could manage.

The sword felt heavy and unwieldy in his hands, but hopefully if it came to it adrenaline would help its swing. There was nothing to be done for the weight of the shield on his weaker arm, but at least he wouldn't have to carry it the entire way, his eldritch training meant he could leave both sword and shield at the farm and summon them to him when they reached the camp.

Greckles looked at him for a long beat, and then nodded. "Just don't get yourself killed, idiot."

"Like old times," Task grinned. "Panic, you'll be reprising your role of tank, I guess."

"Joy," Panic deadpanned, but his expression was sharp as he looked over Remy's armaments.

They were none of them carrying particularly heavy armour, and while Task did have his bow on his back, his quiver was a light weight one with only a handful of arrows, designed for hunting rather than military use. Of them all, only Panic looked ready for battle, in as much as he had his guitar on his back and so he looked as set for battle as he ever did.

"We travel light, move quiet. We're not here to rout them, we just need to grab the kids and get out of there."

"Got it."

Greckles hesitated on the way out of the door and picked up the cane from the umbrella stand by the door where he'd left it.

Tarusk, with the SADS affixed formally to his side, watched them go.

~

Having clear need and intent was keeping Remy from spinning into panic. The shadow of Task ahead of him, Panic to his right, Greckles nowhere to be seen. For the first half an hour or so Greckles had kept alongside them, the cane a rhythmic counterpoint to his steps, but at some point Remy had lost sight of him, and the forest had absorbed any sign of his presence.

Remy had been formidable when he'd first stepped up alongside the Unexpectables; in his prime and fighting at the peak of his abilities. Even still, his skills had still taken a sharp upwards curve fighting alongside them, achieving levels he hadn't even previously imagined for himself.

Each time he separated from them there was a feeling that they returned having taken a step past him, and then he had fallen and he'd failed to get up again and he hadn't ever expected to get another chance to fight alongside them.

In this place, in this moment, he felt outclassed in a way he hadn't ever expected to within this group. His skills, his knowledge, his experience were nothing alongside god-fighters, and right now he didn't even have the immense pool of health he had once been able to offer as a sacrifice to distract an enemy. If he tried to put himself at the front as the group's tank right now, he was going to end up dead, and that would just be embarrassing.

He could block, and he could shield, and he'd half-imagined with a gambeson and no mail or plate he might be quieter on his feet than Task or Panic, but that misconception had been immediately banished. They were like ghosts through the trees, as Remy tried not to stumble in the poor light.

Panic slowed to a stop and Task dropped out of sight. Remy followed Panic as he stepped to one side, and a beat later a slow creeping fog started to roll out through the trees. It was a delight to see how Greckles' skills had grown. What once would have been an obvious spell effect took him a moment to notice, it moved so naturally. There were murmurs of discontent that told him how close they were to the outer reaches of the camp, as other signs started to filter through to him - smells of damp wood fires and the occasional clatter of wood and metal being moved about.

The fog was thin at the edges, which meant that Remy could see the moving shadow on Panic's right and had time to gesture a warning before they could be seen. They ducked into the foliage and let the sentry wander past them, staring pointlessly past them into the fog.

He took another couple of steps, and then Greckles dropped out of nowhere and dropped him into a heap less than five foot away from them, withdrawing a dagger from the still form less than a heartbeat later.

Greckles nodded at them, and then vanished again.

They started moving again, first pulling the body of the sentry into the foliage where they'd been hiding a moment before, hoping to avoid raising an alarm before they were in position. They circled the camp widely, dodging sentries and taking the time to peer through the fog cloud as it started to disperse. It took a long time to find where they needed to be, but eventually Panic came to a stop and pulled Remy down beside him.

"There's a tent, bigger than the others, and two kids out front, manacled to a post." His voice was less than a whisper, but Remy appreciated the heads up. There was still enough daylight left in the evening sky that he could make out the edges of the fog cloud, the white mass that was likely the tent and the point of light that made up the nearest campfire, but he couldn't pick out the kidnapped teenagers from this distance.

"How many watching?"

"No one watching them specifically, but there's maybe fifteen people out in the open who'd see us if we stepped out of cover right now."

"Any of them look like fighters?"

Panic peered through the trees, considering. "No one in particular, there's a dragonborn who looks like he knows how to throw a punch, and most of them have shortswords at their sides. There's a couple of bows, too."

Task stepped out of the trees and knelt beside them, Greckles appearing a beat later.

"If you all can provide a distraction, I can go in invisibly and pick the locks, walk them out of there – but there's a risk they're going to be noticed. And even with the fog cloud there's no way I can stealth past so many people without one of them noticing, unless they're all unconscious."

"Rudy is likely to be in the tent, right? He'll be the fighter we'll have to try to avoid drawing the attention of. He's going to be the one with training."

"I could go in as a travelling bard," Panic said. "See if I can get enough attention on me that you can sneak them out?"

Task shook his head. "It would be a good option, but not if we then have to fight to get you out."

There was a beat of silence, and in that moment Remy's ears pricked on an all too familiar sound. "Where's the griffin?"

"What?" Greckles and Task both asked at the same time.

"Listen…"

They all fell silent for a moment, and there was that caw-cough sound again. Subdued, but most distinctly a griffin sound.

"I don't see it," Panic answered.

Task stood back up. "Give me a second, let me scope it out."

"How does everyone feel about a third party in our jailbreak?" Remy said as Task stealthed away, only half joking.

"It would certainly add to the distraction," Greckles said. "But what are the chances it will let you ride it? Won't it be loyal to its master?"

"I don't think so," Task said, reappearing. "It's a ragged thing, looks half starved."

Remy clenched his beak, preparing for a fight as he turned to the others, but Panic already had his hand up. "Don't look at us like that, of course we're rescuing the griffin too."

"OK, let's go for this a little less delicately. Panic, you and Greckles go in and offer a show. Greckles – you still have your flute in your pack?"

"So long as you don't expect me to play it."

"You just have to convince them the two of you are bards, so long as you look the part, it should be enough. As soon as you've got everyone's attention, Panic, you drop as big a shatter as you can on the camp. I'll take Remy to the griffin and get it freed, and Greckles frees the kids in the chaos. We get the kids on the back of the griffin with Remy, Greckles casts invisibility on himself and Panic and the two of you disengage and run. I cover our retreat, and we ghost."

There was a moment as they all looked at each other, nodding. "It's a good plan," Remy said, calling his sword and shield into his hands.

~

Remy could see the griffin as soon as they turned the corner of the tent, in just as poor a state as Task had said. It was balding in places, either through damage or stress, and its head was low. Every time someone passed nearby its little corner of the camp, it cringed back as if expecting a blow. Remy was immediately furious, nearly vibrating with the need to free it.

Task tapped his hip, and then gestured up into the trees to one side. Perhaps a clearer line of sight for when the action started. Remy nodded, and prepared himself, drawing his sword but keeping it half behind him so it didn't catch the firelight and draw attention.

There was a murmur of attention as Panic and Greckles entered the camp, a couple of swords drawn, but no shouting. Panic's voice cut through it as he introduced himself and Greckles as traveling bards who'd seen the firelight and hoped they could warm themselves, maybe share a song in exchange for a bite of food that could be spared.

He was a persuasive liar, and the voices calmed, swords returned to scabbards.

Remy started to slowly move forwards, down the side of the tent and towards the stake that was holding the griffin. It wasn't saddled, and the halter that was keeping it attached to the stake by far too short a rope looked like it was designed for a horse, all the wrong angles and tight in the wrong places. There was a bridle nearby that looked equally inappropriate, complete with a metal bit that Remy couldn't even conceive of using in a griffin's beak. Remy started pulling some rope out of his bag instead, cutting a length off and tying a couple of familiar knots. The Vetrion Griffin Riders had done this each time they'd taken the griffins to bathe in the nearby lake, using lightweight rope bridles and reins to avoid damaging the leather ones they wore into battle.

Panic was padding, laughing to disperse the tension and plucking at his guitar strings as he started to weave his craft. Remy was still partially covered here, alongside the tent, but the moment he stepped towards the griffin he'd be visible, so he held position, waiting for the action to start.

A moment later, Panic's shatter shot through the crowd, throwing everyone into chaos as Remy darted towards the griffin. The griffin was wide eyed, and nearly clawed him in reaction to his approach, but he dodged the first swipe of the mighty talons, deflected the second off his shield, and dodged in close to try and soothe the beast's fears with hands buried in feathers, rubbing and petting and cooing.

He slid the makeshift rope bridle beneath the horse-designed halter and then unbuckled the first, throwing it to the ground together with the rope that had been keeping it pined. The griffin stamped a little, but didn't try to attack him a second time, throwing its head up and posturing in its freedom.

Two teenagers – a tabaxi and a human – came sprinting around the corner and Remy gripped the bridle tight, throwing his whole weight behind it to keep clawed front feet on the ground as the animal buffeted its wings aggressively. The teenagers both skidded to a stop, with sounds of battle behind them and a frightened griffin in front.

"Get on," Remy said sharply, gesturing them forwards.

They took a couple of tentative steps, and the griffin kept its claws grounded as Remy kept it from shaking off his grip on the bridle.

"Go around the wings," he encouraged. "I'll keep her head while you get on."

They gave the wings a wide berth as they scuttled back, and Remy could hear Task's shots starting to land, followed by an old familiar sound of unnatural vines ensnaring their victims. He knew he didn't have much time even if everything was going to plan.

"Please, be calm. Please, be calm," he willed the beast quiet as the two teenagers made it around the wings and helped each other scramble up onto the narrow back. The griffin narrowed its eyes and pranced slightly, wheezing. Remy narrowed his eyes at the noise, considering the emaciated ribs and threadbare wings.

"Oh, not good," he said to himself. "Hold on!" he called to the two passengers, and vaulted in a practised motion onto the griffin's back, settling in front of the wings and feeling the tabaxi grab on to the back of his pack as he turned the griffin towards the forest and willed it onwards.

It sprang forwards in an ungainly gait, nearly displacing all of them, but was soon running. With the state of its wings, Remy wasn't going to risk taking flight, but griffins didn't have the smoothest ground gait, and it wasn't particularly fast.

"Are you both alright back there?" he asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

"Yes, sir," the tabaxi answered, his words jostled and jarred by the uneven gait. "Not quite a horse, though, is it!"

"Keep an eye out to the rear, as well as you can without losing your balance. Shout if you hear anything following."

The griffin was already panting, clearly in poor condition and not made for so many passengers at the best of times. They came to where the forestry started to thin and Remy coaxed it to an uncertain stop, sliding to the ground.

"Why are we stopping?" the human demanded, his eyes wide in his face as he turned to scan their surroundings.

"Anyone following?" Remy demanded.

"Not that I've seen," the Tabaxi replied. "There's still fighting going on back there."

"Are you hurt? Can you run?"

The human shook his head. "They pushed us around a bit, hit Sotto round the face, but I could run."

"I can run just as good as you," Sotto the tabaxi objected.

"Great, then get off."

"What?" The human, presumably Awbert, looked stunned.

"If you can run, we'll be faster all of us on foot. This griffin's been treated a lot worse than either of you have, we'll all move faster without anyone riding."

"Can't it fly? It's got massive wings."

"Start walking," Remy said. "And I'll explain to you how much energy it takes to fly, and why you don't stress a starving carnivore."

He pulled a strip of jerky out of his pack, glad he hadn't emptied it before they set off, and it was snapped from his talons before he even had it all the way clear of the bag. The two kids both gasped at the motion, but Remy just pulled the makeshift reins forwards over her head and started leading the griffin at the fastest pace he could muster.

They'd be a very visible target, if anyone broke out of the treeline looking for them, but he was hoping that any enemies would be kept busy between their disappearing bard troupe, and the unseen archer.

If everything went perfectly to plan, they'd be meeting back up with the rest of the party soon, and if not then Remy would be taking his cargo as far as he could and sending them back to Lily so that he could turn straight back around to head back into the trees.

~

It was a stupid plan, as full darkness started to fall, but when he reached the road again with no sign of the rest of the group, Remy was just about ready to point the rescuees towards the farm and turn straight back around. Exhaustion was dragging at his steps, and his shield felt heavy enough to tear his arm from his shoulder, but he didn't even consider waiting for reinforcements.

He was literally taking the breath to start directing the kids on the way home when Greckles' voice rang out. "Remy, what the hell?" He stepped out from behind the wall.

"Oh thank Vetrion," he breathed, resisting the urge to fall to his knees.

"Where the hell have you been, we were watching the skies."

"As much as I would have preferred it, there was no way she would have been able to carry the three of us in flight. Are all of you alright?"

"Did you know that griffins can have heart attacks in the air?" Awbert demanded, overflowing with all the griffin knowledge he'd demanded Remy fill him in on as they walked. "And that they can eat as much as two sheep worth of meat a day when they're doing a lot of flying, but only need as much as a human if they don't fly?"

"I… did not know that," Greckles said, looking to Remy.

"Are you carrying any meat rations? She needs food, and I don't know her well enough to predict how she'll behave if she doesn't get it. I'm fairly sure she's not going to get violent around the other animals, but I wouldn't want to risk it."

"Here," Task pulled out a couple more rations – well packed jerky and the remains of the hares from the previous night. Remy kept a tight hand on the rein as the griffin jolted forwards, shoulder checking its forwards momentum and making it reach for the offered food. He trusted Task's reflexes not to get his fingers bitten, but there were limits to that. Greckles and Panic turned over their own rations, clearly amused by the enthusiasm of the beast as is lunged and snapped.

Remy half expected it to calm down after the first few rations, but it ate each one with the same level of frenzied urgency.

"Do you think that will do?" Task asked. "I could try and hunt something…"

"I'd rather we get back, it will do for now. I would like a word with whoever let such a beast into the care of that rabble, but that can wait until morning. We should get everyone back to the farm."

~

They walked the last short distance to the farm, greeted by far fewer of the many farm creatures as they passed through the gate. The griffin danced and shuffled as they surrounded it, and then dispersed again, but didn't show any intention to violence. This time Lily met them half way down the yard track, immediately grabbing up the two teenagers into hugs, and promising to send animal messengers to their parents immediately.

As she let them go, she turned to the others, looking over their unexpected companion.

"Trust you, Remy, to come back with a new friend."

Remy felt just about ready to collapse but he kept himself up, not trusting anyone else with the volatile griffin's reins. "Do you have a spare stable?" he asked, finding a smile.

"Of course, but you're the one who's shovelling hay at this time of night."

Despite her threats, Lily had a thick bed of hay laid out in the unoccupied stable almost before Remy could set down his pack and shield, and the griffin was looking around its new surroundings a little bemused, like it couldn't quite understand the change in circumstances that had brought it here, to this warm space with a full belly.

"I'd imagine she was stolen from the Mayor," Lily was saying, and Remy wasn't sure whether he had missed some of the conversation as he tuned back in. "Although why he wouldn't report it, I don't know."

"She's a Tracadian breed, mountain stock. Not all of them are fit for military service, and some go to private buyers, but Avery's usually meticulous at keeping track of hers, and I didn't think there was another breeder in Alivast."

"She'll be fine here for a couple of days, until we can find out what happened. I'm sure you can help me care for her."

"Of course," he agreed, talons gripping tight at the edge of the stable door as its inhabitant made itself comfortable.

"Remy," Lily said, her voice a little softer.

"Yes?"

"You can relax now. Breathe."

"I am breathing," Remy insisted.

"OK. Do you need some more time here, or can we go inside? I think you're going to need some sleep – the others too."

Remy considered his own exhaustion, recognising the depth of it and knowing Lily was more right than perhaps even she realised. "Would you judge me if I slept in the stables?"

Lily snorted. "Not only would I judge you, I would worry about your sanity. You don't know this griffin well enough to sleep in there on the hay, and there's no bed in the yard. Don't think I didn't notice how stiff you were this morning, and you've just been crashing around in the forest after dark, carrying a sword and shield. If you're going to be taking care of a malnourished and underloved griffin tomorrow, you need your rest."

"You're right." Remy let the Light he'd been using to light the stable wink out and blinked in the sudden darkness.

"It's going to be a full house, all surfaces filled."

"I'll top and tail with someone if it makes things easier. There's space in those beds."

"I might well take you up on that, or at least a borrow of your bedroll for one of the kids."

"Either, both," Remy chuckled as they headed back towards the house, suddenly exhausted. Shaking slightly, though he hoped Lily didn't notice in the encroaching dark. But then he realised she probably had dark vision, and he surrendered to it, scrubbing at his beak with his shaking hands and taking a deep breath. "What a day."

"It certainly has been that," Lily agreed.

~

It was a blurry, undefined time later that Remy sprawled sharply out of bed, nearly kicking Task in the side as he slammed into the floor, failing to contain his groan as the tendons in his arm tried to tie themselves in knots.

"What the fuck," Task muttered. "Remy?"

"It's ok, just a cramp," he hissed. He needed to get outside. Outside outside, because the next room over had Lily, and the room beyond that two kids who'd had a bad day and didn't deserve to listen to him screaming.

He needed to get up, get outside, but Tarusk was on the floor somewhere and he wasn't sure where and he didn't want to risk kicking him.

"Hey," Task's voice, low by his ear. "What can I do? Will cure wounds help?"

Remy breathed, beak grit, absolutely one hundred percent not about to scream in a room with a sleeping dragon and three of his strongest allies.

"What's going on?" Greckles' voice, nearby. He needed to get up, get outside, but if he opened his mouth to ask for help he wasn't entirely sure what noise would come out.

"He said a… cramp? Fuck it," Task murmured, and laid a clawed hand on his shoulder. The contact made him jolt, with a sharp inhalation that got a little like a sob at the end, but the warmth that poured in immediately after the contact was a soothing balm that made the pain feel a little further away.

The knotted ball of rock masquerading as his left arm eased a little until it started to feel like individual muscles and tendons and bones again, and he shuddered, keeping his beak tightly shut until the crack started to complain.

"Remy?" Greckles asked.

He shook his head sharply, considered words and the muscles needed to speak them, debated the possibility of screaming in this very small, delightfully quaint cottage. "One… moment…" he wheezed, and congratulated himself for the control.

He carefully flexed his arm, feeling the tenderness in the moment, fearing the returning cramp as he moved. He'd had days before, especially early on, where a cramp would fade and ease and he'd reflexively stretch only to be hit again.

"Thank you, Task," he said, somewhat hoarse and a little slurred, but the feeling was fading along with the fear that the muscles would cramp again.

"Are you… better? Do you need more?"

The room was still dark, and he was glad of it. Greckles wouldn't be able to see him, and he didn't have to be as aware as he might otherwise be of Task staring at him with concern.

"No, it's easing off. Sorry to… wake you both."

"Do you think you can sleep some more?"

"I just need a minute. I'll stretch and then I'll come back to bed."

There was a change in the light as Greckles partially unsheathed his blade and filled the space with a warm light. Panic groaned and rolled over and Task flinched, his hand coming up to block the light. Remy took the opportunity to grab his gambeson up off the floor and gauge where Tarusk was laying.

Getting to his feet took more effort than it should have, but he made it up and out of the room without stumbling. There were some murmured voices as he passed through the doorway, but he didn't stop to find out if anyone was trying to talk to him. There was an outer door through to the back of the house, and cool moonlight was seeping through the windows. It was just enough to get him through the house and into the fresh air of the little vegetable garden.

There was a little bench beside the door, and he slumped down onto it, clutching at his shoulder as the muscles across his back started to ache in the aftermath of the cramp. The air was cool, and with short awkward movements and time between each attempt to recover his breath, he got his gambeson hanging loose over his shoulders to provide a little protection against the elements.

Task's healing had gone a long way to soothing the aches and pains of storming full speed across uneven ground, creeping around in the forest in the dark and catching a full force talon blow on his shield, but his body wasn't made for this kind of abuse anymore.

Even sitting was uncomfortable, and he stood to try and straighten only to feel the muscles down his left side started to clench again. He bit down on a swear, fighting to keep his breathing deep and slow as bands constricted across his chest.

He started to pace, needing the movement to convince his body that he would eventually find a comfortable way to stand, that panicking was not the right reaction. He would stretch if he thought he could bring himself to move his arm at all from the tight clench against his side.

"Hey," Task's voice from the door behind him, "What's going on?"

"Nothing," he ground out, wishing he had an ounce of deception in him right now.

"I've got more healing, would it help?"

His laugh was a little hysterical, and he stopped as soon as he heard himself. "No," he said. "Thank you for the offer though."

"Lily might have some… actual painkillers, would that be better?"

"Right now, I'd take being knocked unconscious. But I imagine that wouldn't really help the way I want to believe it would."

"Is this… What is this?"

Remy's breath hitched and he pressed harder against his side. "They patchworked my body back together, and sometimes it tries to tear itself back apart. Usually I moderate what I do, a certain amount of activity and then I have to rest. Today has been a bit of an outlier."

"You shouldn't have come with us. We should have stopped you."

"I would have liked to see you try," he shot back.

The pacing was starting to help, although it was clear Task was only getting more concerned.

"Don't you want to sit down?"

"If I sit too still, I start to cramp up again."

"If you don't sleep, you're going to be exhausted."

Another half-laugh, shaking his head. "Task, sincerely thank you for your concern, but I had a point of exhaustion before we left that camp, two by the time we got back to the farm. This is point four."

"Fuck, why are you still getting worse – you were sleeping!"

"Keep your voice down, I'll be alright. I just need… a moment. It'll ease off and I'll probably sleep most of tomorrow."

"How will we know you're getting better?" Task demanded, his voice still too loud for the ones still sleeping not far away. "If you can get more exhausted while you're fucking sleeping, how do we know you're not just going to…"

"Task," Remy snapped, interrupting the spiralling kobold.

"I hate this," Task snarled. "This… uncertainty. Nothing feels safe anymore, now he's gone."

Remy swallowed hard, thinking of the story Greckles had told him of not being able to rouse Borky, hating the confirmation of his suspicion that it was a barbarian's exhaustion that had caused it.

"I'm sorry, to make this worse for you. It was never my intent to make this something you had to worry about."

"I know that it's bad to try to make my circle small and easy to protect. But it helped me for a long time to have this image in my head of the very small number of people I had to keep safe, and I could know where they were and who was near them and that they were protected and I didn't have to worry about anyone else."

Remy gasped as the muscles down his side spasmed, twisting slightly to try and ease it and pausing his pacing to breathe through it. His gambeson started to slip, and he tugged it back into place. Task's hands were curled into fists when he opened his eyes, not sure when he'd closed them.

"But it's bullshit," Task continued, a little hoarse. "And I care about people, and it hurts me when they get hurt, and it hurts me when I can't protect them. I hated not knowing how you were, not being able to protect you. And I feel like I should thank you, because I know you're… far more healed now than you were then, and I've got to say, it would have killed me to know you were hurting this badly and there was nothing to do to help, because I can tell you it's killing me right now."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop. Fucking. Apologising."

"Can we…" His breathing hitched, and he held it for a moment until the spasm passed. "Go see the griffin?"

"Are you serious right now?"

"Moving helps." Remy turned towards the gate that was just visible in the moonlight and started a slow wobbly walk in that direction.

"You're literally exhausted."

"I'm not dead yet."

Task stepped around in front of him and opened the gate. "When will you stop?"

Remy considered as he followed Task's figure out into the yard. "If I can't move anymore and I start to struggle to breathe, there's a potion in my bag and I'll probably need a cleric within two hours. You'll know if you need to use it. Don't waste it, those are very expensive and there's only so far I can push my sister's generosity."

Task shot him a look. "…You're serious?"

"Utterly."

"And you carry that potion…"

"Because it wouldn't be the first time I've pushed myself past all my limits, and my sister knows me too well."

"Sometimes you terrify me. Why wouldn't you tell us about that in advance? It's not much use to you if you don't tell anyone it exists, and you can't take it yourself."

"The aim is to take it before I'm completely incapacitated, but now I've told you about it, so now someone knows it exists."

Task fell into an exasperated silence.

The stables were small, and barely a few yards from the house, but Remy was moving slowly and while the cramping had mostly subsided his whole body felt like a pulled muscle. Moving hurt, breathing hurt, but if it hurt he was alive.

He wrapped his right hand under his left elbow beneath quilted fabric, keeping his arm from jostling and spiking pain through his jaw as it started to relax back into a more natural position, and let Task open the few doors that closed off the stables from the outside.

Mally was the first to bring her massive head up over her stable door to look out at the intruders, but the griffin was not far behind. The tiny amount of moonlight that made it through the open doors was barely enough to see more than Mally's white blaze, and the white feathers of the griffon's head. Remy resisted the urge to approach the strange griffin he had just stolen from someone and knock their beaks together. It was a behaviour he'd trained Volo to, and not something he could just do to this strange beast without repercussions. Getting bitten this evening would not help anything, and was likely to make Task only more angry with him.

"I don't have anything for you," he said as he approached. "I'm sorry."

She let him step in close and didn't snap as reached out to press his right hand against her neck, running talons through her feathers in a mimicry of preening. Even with her feathers thinning as they were, a few more loose feathers came away and fluttered to the ground.

"Will she be alright," Task asked, still stood in the doorway. "If Lily finds someone who can take care of her? They didn't do irreparable damage to her?"

"It'll be easier to tell in daylight, but they're resilient creatures. She let us near enough to ride her, and griffins are more than capable of getting rid of a rider they don't want."

Task chuckled. "How much are you thinking of taking her home right now?"

"I'm not fit to care for her but can't deny that I've thought about it. Renting one of Avery's stables. Getting into the sky again." He chuckled. A massive head dropped down alongside his own and made a clumsy attempt at preening his feathers. "Thank you," he said beneath the ministrations, taking a half step back before he was knocked completely off his feet.

The griffin reared up to put both taloned front feet on the stable door and leaned over to reach him, and he shooed her back inside with a gesture.

He turned to Task and found him wide-eyed.

"What?" he asked, not sure what that expression meant.

"It could take your head off in a bite. You have no idea of its temperament or behaviour… you're just letting it peck at you, and you tut at it like a dog when it tries to climb out of the stable after you. You know, every time I meet another one I think one day I'll get over my fear of birds, and it's just not happening."

"And yet you keep so many around you."

"You're funny. You ready to try and get some sleep?"

Remy considered his body; aching, sore and shivering now that he was starting to pay attention to the cold, but no longer trying to tear him apart. "I'd like to try."

"You gonna make it back to the house?"

"Of course."

"Hmm."

He did eventually make it back to the house, falling back into the bed and letting Task answer Greckles' hushed questions. Sleep took him before their conversation ended.

~

Remy woke, not entirely sure how long it had been since he had fallen asleep. There was dull light seeping in through the small window, but he felt well rested enough that it couldn't possibly be the dawn. The room was empty, and there was a low murmured conversation coming from not far away. The door that had been shut the night before was propped open, like one would prop the door to a child's room in order to hear if they stirred.

He took stock of his body and found himself sluggish and sore, but not with any specific source of pain. Granted, he hadn't forced himself into movement yet, but it definitely could be worse.

Sitting came slowly and standing slower still. He considered his clothes, the stretches that he should do if he wanted to be good for anything today, and then just pulled the blanket from the bed over his shoulders and ambled through the house towards the voices.

He hesitated in the doorway, the fireplace making the room a soothingly warm temperature. He was still blinking sleep out of his eyes, but he could hear Task and Greckles talking, and Panic's guitar beneath it all, and then Lily, greeting him in a bright tone.

Everything felt a little detached, but he was beginning to think he'd slept a long time, he wasn't quite processing his surroundings.

"Morning," he mumbled, since it seemed like Lily was waiting for a response to the question he hadn't fully registered.

Task and Greckles laughed, and he wandered the rest of the way into the room to take a seat on a comfy chair, looking with curiosity at the bowl of… something like porridge that Greckles had his foot in.

"What is that?" he asked, slurring the words somewhat.

"Are you alright?" Greckles asked instead of answering.

"Still… waking up. Why is your foot in… that?"

"It's plaster. Lily takes a cast of my foot and then she'll make me a support to wear."

"Oh."

"I don't think I've ever seen you this… dishevelled," Task said. "How are you feeling? How's the exhaustion?"

"Better. But I don't think I'll be up for much today."

"There's not much left of today, if it makes you feel any better."

"Ah," he said. And then a moment later, with his mind putting concepts together glacially slow. "Oh, Lily I'm sorry. I was supposed to help you with the griffin…"

"You're fine, she's been tremendously well behaved. We've had some news about where she came from, too."

Panic leaned in, the guitar picking up alongside his words. "Seems like the Mayor's son had some feelings for our new bandit leader once upon a time. He didn't report his stolen griffin missing for fear of retribution against his old flame. He came by to see her today, and I think any lasting feelings he might have had are starting to fade." It sounded like he was starting to pull together lyrics for a song, the tune already a living thing, and Remy just smiled.

"It's amazing how much of a reality check animal cruelty can be," Greckles added.

"He's going to leave her here to recover," Lily explained. "And then he'll take her back home. He brought near enough a cart of food for her. Goodness knows where I'll store it all."

"Good. I'm glad."

"Sorry you won't get to spirit her away back to Alivast," Task said, with a conspiratorial grin.

"Silly ideas," Remy said. "She's far better off here. Although… I might ask you to look in on her for me, Lily? Just from time to time."

"Of course, it would be my pleasure." Lily handed over a mug of something warm, and as Remy sipped at it, horribly bitter. At his face, Greckles took a small container of honey with a little spoon from beside his own cup and handed it over with a wink.

"What will happen about the bandit camp?" Remy asked, fumbling a little with the little spoon, but managing to dump a generous dollop of honey into whatever potion Lily had handed him.

"Already done. We told the local guard the layout and who was there before you got back to us last night, and they got together a decent little force and raided in the early hours of this morning. The leader – Rudy - slipped them, but they picked up the majority of the bandits. The camp's empty, the city jail is full."

"Well…" Remy considered. "I have missed a day."

~

The evening fell with more good food, and as they agreed that they would take a full day of rest before they returned home, the emergence of some very fine liquor.

Feeling more and more like himself as the evening went on and whatever Lily had given him started to help, Remy escaped the room as Lily and Greckles worked to free his foot from the set plaster, to replace his blanket cloak with some real clothes before rejoining them. He took another cup of the cider instead of anything stronger, knowing any real liquor was likely to knock him for six.

It didn't take long for Panic to return to the topic he so clearly wanted more information on. "So, you can't put it off any longer. We have to hear about this kleptomaniac streak you've kept so well hidden for so long."

"What!?" Task snorted.

"Scarlet told me that there was a story to be told – something about a griffin?"

Remy shook his head. "That is… not a good story, and not one I take a great deal of pride in."

"All stories are good stories," Panic chuckled. "It just depends on how you tell them."

"I was a teenager… almost an adult… who thought the world had done me so wrong in taking away my home and my father, even though when we arrived in Alivast we received a noble's treatment despite our country no longer existing. Even though our power and influence persisted. Even though we were afforded loans and equipment to allow my mother to get her business up and running. Even though the ones my family were supposed to serve and protect ended up begging for scraps outside the wall.  
"I was angry and stupid, and lashing out in ways that benefitted no one and only served to embarrass my mother in the face of those who had been generous with her.  
"So I don't find it a funny story, or one worth telling. It's a shameful part of my past, and despite everything it's one that brought me the most benefit. It brought me to the Vetrion army, and it brought me Volo. I was given a chance to turn myself around when few others would have been given the same opportunity.  
"It's status that stopped me turning into that man out there today, stealing griffins and being unable to take care of them properly. Gathering sycophants around me because I felt the world owed me something, and it hadn't delivered."

Frustrated adrenaline subsided as Remy stopped talking, and he found himself hot in the face as they all looked towards him.

"You and that guy are nothing alike," Greckles growled.

Remy met his gaze. "You might not think so, if you'd known me back then. I had done a lot of growing up by the time you all met me."

"I think you all had to do your growing up pretty fast," Lily said quietly, reaching out to press a hand to Remy's arm. "Sometimes you have to be more gentle with your younger self."

Remy considered the histories, the childhoods that became adulthoods far too early amongst the group, and shook his head as he compared them to his own. "Borky once told me that nobility was worth nothing, because it wasn't something I had earned, it was something I had been born with, and the older I get, the more I realise he was absolutely right. I tried to earn the respect I took as my right, but I did not always achieve it."

"I think it's fair to say we all did some pretty stupid things when we were young," Greckles said. "Things that we've worked to fix, to change."

"Speak for yourself," Panic snorted. "I've always been perfect, it was everyone else who didn't see it."

As the others laughed at Panic's chicanery, Remy took a breath, considered the moment and the people and all the reasons he had hated himself for the impulsive moment of idiocy that had defined the majority of his young adulthood. If he was honest with himself had defined a fair amount since then. He cleared his throat. "Not all of us stole the griffin mount of the captain of the Alivastian army while he was stood speaking to the captain of the guard, and took her for a three day joy ride to the burning remains of Valithia to search for their missing father."

There was a brief pause, and then Panic whooped, as Task cackled with laugher. "Three days!?"

"They didn't have anything else fast enough to chase me. The man was an idiot besides, he called her back and she didn't even glance in his direction, I think she was glad to be done with him. She had spur wounds and her bridle was deforming the shape of her beak it was so tight. Imbecile."

"How did you go from that to where we met you?" Greckles asked, offering his glass as Lily topped up their drinks.

Remy willed himself calm, to describe without letting on how it strangled him with emotion; "I spent some time in jail," he said, and swallowed. The worst out of the way. "Though I didn't know it at the time a large number of important people were debating whether it was possible to cause a political incident when my country didn't exist anymore. Eventually Brorc Bronze-Fang and Balfor Balton approached me to serve out my time in the Vetrion army, out of respect for my father. Like I said, opportunities I didn't deserve."

"How long were you in there for?" Panic asked, eyes sharp like he'd seen what Remy had been trying to hide. "Before you were released to Balfor?"

Remy considered all the evasions, the truths and facts he could lay out without exposing himself, but in the end he thought of all the things he knew of the men around him, all of the secrets they had trusted him with over the years.

"Long enough, months by the end. It wasn't bad," he said to Lily's gasp, meeting her eyes to confirm his sincerity. "They didn't mistreat me in any way, but the experience scared me in a way I'm not sure I would find it easy to explain. The feeling of helplessness, of powerlessness. You know it's not something I handle well, and perhaps that's the origin of it, perhaps not.  
"When I was transferred into the Army, there were strict constraints on my training else I would return to imprisonment, and I was scared enough to fall in line. I worked twice as hard as my cohort, kept myself to the highest standard I could achieve, to make it clear that I was worth the risk they had taken. I thought I would have to fight a lot harder to join the griffin riders, at the end of my training, but it seemed Avery had heard of my… exploits and had requested me."

"You ever think about luck and fate?"

"Really, Greckles?" Task shot over.

"No, hear me out. I know there was some manipulation going on in the background. But how much of it was luck, and how much of it was by design… Only you could have spotted us falling as early as you did, Remy. And if we hadn't been spotted so early, I bet the griffin riders wouldn't have been able to catch all of us before we hit the ground. So was Remy there by luck, or by fate?"

Remy snorted. "I hate to imagine that I was there for the sole purpose of spotting you falling, and then I outlived my usefulness."

Greckles waved a hand dismissively. "You know that's not what I mean. How many things came together in all of our lives that we end up here in this moment? Or there together in that moment. How many choices – that we made, that the people around us made… It's just…" Greckles trailed off, considering his glass for a beat. "I think I'm drunk. This is very strong."

"Fate or luck, I'm glad we all met," Lily said sincerely, and the rabble of agreement and laughter was a soothing balm as the evening rolled on.


End file.
